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"Bless me, here's the cub!" cried Philippe. "Well, we'll go and dine together. You shall go to the opera; Florine and Florentine have got a box. I'm going with Giroudeau; you shall be of the party, and I'll introduce you to Nathan." He took his leaded cane, and moistened a cigar. "I can't accept your invitation; I am to take our mother to dine at a table d'hote."
Florentine and Giroudeau, the one to promote his comrade's happiness, the other to get a protector for her friend, pushed Philippe and Mariette into a "mariage en detrempe," a Parisian term which is equivalent to "morganatic marriage," as applied to royal personages. Philippe when they left the house revealed his poverty to Giroudeau, but the old roue reassured him.
Coloquinte was there with the stamped paper still on his head; and old Giroudeau told him again, hypocritically enough, that no one had yet come in. "But the editor and contributors must meet somewhere or other to arrange about the journal," said Lucien.
At the end of a week Philippe had a new suit of clothes, coat, waistcoat, and trousers, of good blue Elbeuf cloth, bought on credit, to be paid for at so much a month; also new boots, buckskin gloves, and a hat. Giroudeau sent him some linen, with his weapons and a letter for Carpentier, who had formerly served under Giroudeau.
The not imcomprehensible jealousy Philippe felt on seeing Giroudeau a colonel drove him to re-enter the service. Unluckily for himself, he obtained, in 1835, the command of a regiment in Algiers, where he remained three years in a post of danger, always hoping for the epaulets of a general. But some malignant influence that, in fact, of General Giroudeau, continually balked him.
To make himself agreeable to his uncle, Finot gave Philippe the place Giroudeau was quitting; cutting off, however, half the salary. Moreover, daily, at five o'clock, Giroudeau audited the accounts and carried away the receipts. Coloquinte, the old veteran, who was the office boy and did errands, also kept an eye on the slippery Philippe; who was, however, behaving properly.
"My good fellow," said Giroudeau in a soothing and humble tone, "this is the gallant cavalry officer of the Imperial Guard of whom I spoke to you." "Eh! well?" said Finot, eyeing Philippe, who, like Giroudeau, lost all his assurance before the diplomatist of the press. "My dear boy," said Giroudeau, trying to pose as an uncle, "the colonel has just returned from Texas."
His devotion was so noticeable, that he received orders to go to Saint-Cloud with the Duc de Maufrigneuse and attend a council. This mark of favor probably saved Philippe's life; for when the order came, on the 25th of July, he was intending to make a charge and sweep the boulevards, when he would undoubtedly have been shot down by his friend Giroudeau, who commanded a division of the assailants.
Anybody would take Giroudeau for a fool at first sight, but he has just enough shrewdness to be an inscrutable old file. He is on picket duty; he sees that we are not pestered with hubbub, beginners wanting a job, or advertisements. No other paper has his equal, I think." "He plays his part well," said Lucien; "I saw him at work."
One evening at the beginning of February, Giroudeau took Philippe after dinner to the Gaite, occupying a free box sent to a theatrical journal belonging to his nephew Finot, in whose office Giroudeau was cashier and secretary.
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