Page 59 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

IX

or three more days we continued traipsing about look-
Fing for work, coming home for diminishing meals of
soup and bread in my bedroom. There were now two gleams
of hope. In the first place, Boris had heard of a possible job
at the Hotel X, near the Place de la Concorde, and in the
second, the PATRON of the new restaurant in the rue du
Commerce had at last come back. We went down in the af-
ternoon and saw him. On the way Boris talked of the vast
fortunes we should make if we got this job, and on the im-
portance of making a good impression on the PATRON.
‘Appearance—appearance is everything, MON AMI.
Give me a new suit and I will borrow a thousand francs by
dinner-time. What a pity I did not buy a collar when we had
money. I turned my collar inside out this morning; but what
is the use, one side is as dirty as the other. Do you think I
look hungry, MON AMI?’
‘You look pale.’
‘Curse it, what can one do on bread and potatoes? It is fa-
tal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you. Wait.’
He stopped at a jeweller’s window and smacked his
cheeks sharply to bring the blood into them. Then, before
the flush had faded, we hurried into the restaurant and in-
troduced ourselves to the PATRON.
The PATRON was a short, fattish, very dignified man

Down and Out in Paris and London