And on Sunday . . . P'tit-Bleu went twice to church!
About ten days after my return to Paris, there came a rat-ta-ta-tat at my door, and P'tit-Bleu walked in—pale, with wide eyes. "I don't know how he has contrived it, but he must have got some money somewhere, and walked to the railway, and come to town. Anyhow, here are three days that he has disappeared. What to do? What to do?" She was in a deplorable state of mind, poor thing, and I scarcely knew how to help her. I proposed that we should take counsel with a Commissary of Police. But when that functionary discovered that she was neither the wife nor daughter of the missing man, he smiled, and remarked, "It is not our business to recover ladies protectors for them." P'tit-Bleu walked the streets in quest of him, all day long and very nearly all night long too, for close upon a fortnight. In the end, she met him on the quays—dazed, half-imbecile, and again nude of everything save his shirt and trousers. So, again, having nicely built up her house of cards—piff!—something had happened to topple it over.
"Let him go to the devil his own way," said I. "Really, he's unworthy of your pains."
"No, I can't leave him. You see, I'm fond of him," said she.
He, however, positively refused to return to the country. "The fact is," he explained, "I ought to go to London. Yes, it will be well for me to pass the winter in London. I should like to have a show there, a one-man show, you know. I dare say I could sell a good many pictures, and get orders for portraits." So they went to London. In the spring I received a letter from P'tit-Bleu—a letter full of orthographic faults, if you like—but a letter that I treasure. Here's a translation of it:
"My
