When the two workmen had exchanged confidences, they ordered another
half litre of wine, and sat in silence till the grimy host had set it
down between them on the blackened table, and had retired to his den.
Then they looked at each other.
"There is an affair here," observed Gigi presently.
"I suppose you mean the newspapers," said Toto nodding gravely. "They
pay for such stories."
"Newspapers!" Gigi made a face. "All journalists are pigs who are
dying of hunger."
Toto seemed inclined to agree with this somewhat extreme statement, on
the whole, but he distinguished. There were papers, he said, which
would pay as much as a hundred francs for a scandalous story about the
Roman princes. A hundred francs was not a gold mine, it was not Peru.
But it was a hundred francs. What did Gigi expect? The treasure of
Saint Peter's? A story was a story, after all, and anybody could deny
it.
"It is worth more than a hundred francs," Gigi answered, with his
weasel smile, "but not to the newspapers. The honour of a Roman
princess is worth a hundred thousand."
Toto whistled, and then looked incredulous, but it began to dawn upon
him that the "affair" was of more importance than he had supposed.
Gigi was much cleverer than he; that was why he always called Gigi an
imbecile.
The carpenter unfolded his plan.
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