Page 50 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

stove, and gorged.
After eating, Boris became more optimistic than I had
ever known him. ‘What did I tell you?’ he said. ‘The fortune
of war! This morning with five sous, and now look at us. I
have always said it, there is nothing easier to get than mon-
ey. And that reminds me, I have a friend in the rue Fondary
whom we might go and see. He has cheated me of four thou-
sand francs, the thief. He is the greatest thief alive when he
is sober, but it is a curious thing, he is quite honest when he
is drunk. I should think he would be drunk by six in the
evening. Let’s go and find him. Very likely he will pay up a
hundred on account. MERDE! He might pay two hundred.
ALLONS-Y!’
We went to the rue Fondary and found the man, and he
was drunk, but we did not get our hundred francs. As soon
as he and Boris met there was a terrible altercation on the
pavement. The other man declared that he did not owe Bo-
ris a penny, but that on the contrary Boris owed HIM four
thousand francs, and both of them kept appealing to me for
my opinion. I never understood the rights of the matter. The
two argued and argued, first in the street, then in a BISTRO,
then in a PRIX FIXE restaurant where we went for dinner,
then in another BISTRO. Finally, having called one another
thieves for two hours, they went off together on a drinking
bout that finished up the last sou of Boris’s money.
Boris slept the night at the house of a cobbler, another
Russian refugee, in the Commerce quarter. Meanwhile,
I had eight francs left, and plenty of cigarettes, and was
stuffed to the eyes with food and drink. It was a marvellous