I was not mistaken, but as I came out I
found him miserably studying the bill of fare stuck up on the
portals. Then he slowly made his way over to a milk-hall. For the
first time in my experience I missed the charm and gaiety of Vienna
life.
After that, in Paris or London or wherever I happened to be, I
continued to see a good deal of Laploshka. If I had a seat in a box
at a theatre I was always conscious of his eyes furtively watching
me from the dim recesses of the gallery. As I turned into my club
on a rainy afternoon I would see him taking inadequate shelter in a
doorway opposite. Even if I indulged in the modest luxury of a
penny chair in the Park he generally confronted me from one of the
free benches, never staring at me, but always elaborately conscious
of my presence. My friends began to comment on my changed looks,
and advised me to leave off heaps of things. I should have liked to
have left off Laploshka.
On a certain Sunday--it was probably Easter, for the crush was worse
than ever--I was again wedged into the crowd listening to the music
in the fashionable Paris church, and again the collection-bag was
buffeting its way across the human sea. An English lady behind me
was making ineffectual efforts to convey a coin into the still
distant bag, so I took the money at her request and helped it
forward to its destination. It was a two-franc piece. A swift
inspiration came to me, and I merely dropped my own sou into the bag
and slid the silver coin into my pocket.
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