"You are M. Marius Pontmercy?"
"Certainly."
"I was looking for you," resumed Laigle de Meaux.
"How so?" demanded Marius; for it was he:
in fact, he had just quitted his grandfather''s, and had before him a face which he now beheld for the first time.
"I do not know you."
"Neither do I know you," responded Laigle.
Marius thought he had encountered a wag, the beginning of a mystification in the open street.
He was not in a very good humor at the moment. He frowned.
Laigle de Meaux went on imperturbably:--
"You were not at the school day before yesterday."
"That is possible."
"That is certain."
"You are a student?" demanded Marius.
"Yes, sir.
Like yourself.
Day before yesterday, I entered the school, by chance.
You know, one does have such freaks sometimes. The professor was just calling the roll.
You are not unaware that they are very ridiculous on such occasions.
At the third call, unanswered, your name is erased from the list.
Sixty francs in the gulf."
Marius began to listen.
"It was Blondeau who was making the call.
You know Blondeau, he has a very pointed and very malicious nose, and he delights to scent out the absent.
He slyly began with the letter P. I was not listening, not being compromised by that letter.