Page:Tales of Today.djvu/72

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56
A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL.

face; it was the friend to whom Arthur had written to come and get him out of his scrape. He offered his purse, and Arthur paid off the commissionaire and settled for his countless glasses of sugar and water.

"My dear friend," says the newcomer, "since I have paid for your breakfast you must let me set up the grub for the rest of the day as well, and come and sup with us."

Circumstances resulting from the encounter with this friend, an amour which ended in a journey, a journey which ended in a quarrel, a quarrel which ended in a return home, all these things consumed a great deal of time.

After these events, while en route, Arthur devotes his thoughts to his unknown, and upon returning to his studio removes the bouquet, long since faded, that adorned her portrait and replaces it by a fresh, one of pink heather and golden broom.

"Parbleu!" says Arthur, "I must go and see my uncle."

Eugène was going out to his solitary dinner just as Arthur came in.

"Well?"

"Well?"

"Have you seen your uncle?"

"No."

"How is that?"

"The boulevard has been playing its old tricks on me. I stopped to see a giantess; she was a Pole at the time of the Polish war, a Belgian during the siege of