Anyone else than M.Manotel, or perhaps M.Fille or the New Cure, would have hesitated to take the five dollars, or, if they had done so, would have handed it back; but they had souls to understand this Jean Jacques, and they would not deny him his insistent independence.

And so, in a moment, he was making his way out of the crowd with the cage in his hand, the bird silent now.
As he went, some one touched his arm and slipped a book into his hand.
It was M.Fille, and the book was his little compendium of philosophy which his friend had retrieved from his bedroom in the early morning.
"You weren't going to forget it, Jean Jacques ?" M.Fille said reproachfully.

"It is an old friend.

It would not be happy with any one else." Jean Jacques looked M.Fille in the eyes.

"Moi--je suis philosophe," he said without any of the old insistence and pride and egotism, but as one would make an affirmation or repeat a creed.
"Yes, yes, to be sure, always, as of old," answered M.Fille firmly; for, from that formula might come strength, when it was most needed, in a sense other and deeper far than it had been or was now.