"Corbleu! monsieur, what do you mean to imply by all this? This cane that you lost, with an agate head--and your hat with a band like this--do you know that I am beginning to lose my temper? Do you mean to say that I stole your cane?"
"Then you insult me, and I will not brook an insult!--When we leave this café, we will go and cut each other's throats, like a couple of young dandies!"
"Never, monsieur; not by any means! I am mistaken, monsieur; I am wrong. No, no, it isn't my cane--let it be as if I had said nothing; I beg your pardon."
The little bald man, trembling like a leaf, seemed inclined to disappear under the table at which he was seated. Cherami, having reflected two or three minutes, looked at him with an affable expression, and said:
"Didn't you lose something else at the party you mentioned just now."
"Something else? yes, I did, monsieur; I was in bad luck that night! When I arrived at the ball, I had lost one of my gloves--a yellow glove. To be sure, it was returned to me later--but in such a state!"
"Ah! now I understand! I recognize you now!"
"To be sure--you are Monsieur Courbichon."
"That's my name, sure enough! But how----?"
"Pardieu! we met at our friend Blanquette's little party. Dear Monsieur Courbichon! I have been looking for you a long while!"
"You have been looking for me, monsieur? For what, pray?"
"But, monsieur, I don't know whether----"
"And your hat too, if you insist upon it; but, as the one you have now is newer, you would lose again by the change. But the cane is certainly yours; do you consider me capable of keeping something that doesn't belong to me,--that is in my possession only as the result of a mistake?"
"You understand, of course, that before returning this cane, which I carried away by mistake from my friend Blanquette's party, I wished to be sure of returning it to its owner and no one else. Have you my switch?"
"No, monsieur; I haven't it--I don't even know what has become of it."
"Bigre! I am very sorry for that. You thought, I suppose, that it was just a common switch; you didn't see that it was a _nerf de boeuf_, which came from China, where they make a great many canes of that material, because it bends and never breaks. You value it at six sous, but it was worth forty francs."