Fallowby began a series of intricate explanations, which were soon cut short by Trent.
“I know; you blew it in;—you always blow it in. I don’t care a rap what you did before the siege: I know you are rich and have a right to dispose of your money as you wish to, and I also know that, generally speaking, it is none of my business. But now it is my business, as I have to supply the funds until you get some more, which you won’t until the siege is ended one way or another. I wish to share what I have, but I won’t see it thrown out of the window. Oh, yes, of course I know you will reimburse me, but that isn’t the question; and, anyway, it’s the opinion of your friends, old man, that you will not be worse off for a little abstinence from fleshly pleasures. You are positively a freak in this famine-cursed city of skeletons!”
“I am rather stout,” he admitted.
“Is it true you are out of money?” demanded Trent.
“Yes, I am,” sighed the other.
“That roast sucking pig on the Rue St. Honoré—is it there yet?” continued Trent.
“Wh—at?” stammered the feeble one.
“Ah—I thought so! I caught you in ecstasy before that sucking pig at least a dozen times!”
Then laughing, he presented Fallowby with a roll of twenty franc pieces saying, “If these go for luxuries you must live on your own flesh,” and went over to aid West, who sat beside the washbasin binding up his hand.
West suffered him to tie the knot, and then said: “You remember, yesterday, when I left you and Braith to take the chicken to Colette.”