Joly came striding into the sitting room like a general preparing for battle. "Bossuet," he announced in the same tone of voice said general might adopt after being defeated, captured, and bound to a stake by the enemy, "I can't find my glasses."
The response he received was anything but sympathetic. "They're on your head," Bossuet replied absently, not looking up from his book.
Joly crossed his arms. "Really," he admonished, abandoning his solemn demeanor for a more accusatory one, "that is the most absolutely prosaic answer you could possibly give."
"Well, we aren't onstage, are we? It was the best answer that came to mind, and its true, besides. Let me know when you plan to lose them again and I'll use the time to think up something suitably creative to say." Bossuet hid a smile when Joly harrumphed indignantly. "Just don't blame me if it turns out to be wrong."
"That isn't the point."
Bossuet shrugged and turned a page. For a short time, there was silence, broken only by Joly's occasional sighs. Once he had paced the length of the room half a dozen times and made a show of tapping his foot for a minute of two, it occurred to him that Bossuet actually might not intend to acknowledge him again. "You didn't even look," he finally said.
"Hm?"
"When you said they were on my head. You didn't even look."
"Trust me. They're there."
"I am not so absentminded as to leave a pair of spectacles on my head and then forget about them."
Bossuet was smirking behind his book, he could tell. "Maybe this just isn't your day."
"Seriously, where are they? And will you at least look up this time?"
His mouth involuntarily twitching, Bossuet lowered the book. "I swear to you by—" he glanced back down at the volume in his hands. "—by all the bells in Notre-Dame and all the literate goats outside it that the glasses are. On. Your. Head."
"You know," Joly began, raising his eyebrows, "I would ask what in the world it is you're reading, but—"
"—you are going to pluck those lenses from your forehead before you ask me anything at all." Bossuet interrupted airily. "Of course, that's exactly what you're going to do. Go right ahead, I won't stop you."
Joly shook his head in exasperation. "I would if I could, but I can see myself in the mirror and I'm quite certain that they. Are. Not. There." He squinted speculatively at his friend. "Maybe you could do with a pair, too . . ."
"Ah, well, if you can see yourself in a mirror all the way across the room, perhaps you don't need glasses after all," came the flippant reply. Then, quickly: "And don't even consider clamping a pair of those things over my face."
"Why not? I'm thinking it might do you good."
"First of all, I doubt I could afford a pair. Second, I don't have any hair to lose them in."
"Bossuet, I'm sorry to say that that made no sense whatsoever. Should I give you time to come up with a more creative reply for this, too?"
Bossuet affected a humble manner. "You're the mighty physician, diagnose what you will. But I still say your eyesight is perfectly fine. Come to think of it, I seem to remember mentioning something to that effect before you even purchased them, don't you?"
Joly tapped his forehead knowingly. "You may have, yes. However, being the mighty physician that I am, I listened to my own reliable advice rather than your own."
"But you still ended up spending a great deal of money on something you don't need, won't ever use and, apparently, have managed to lose immediately," countered Bossuet.
"I do so need them," Joly responded petulantly, either not noticing or caring that he sounded about nine years old. The way he saw it, any affront to his perpetual lack of well-being demanded a prompt retort, no matter what it might be. "I need them so badly," he continued, putting a hand over his heart like the lead actor in a bad melodrama, "that I can't for the life of me see well enough to search the room for them. Besides which, I was planning on heading out to dinner, which is an absolutely suicidal thing to do if one can't see a thing, especially in this city. And I know I'm not going to get any help from you; you're sitting there reading about bells and literate goats—truly, your choice in reading material baffles me sometimes. But as I was saying, I'm doomed to wander this cruel city forever, all because I was dying of hunger and you, whom I've always regarded as my dearest and most faithful friend, wouldn't lift a finger to help me in this time of crisis." At that, he sank down pathetically beside Bossuet on the couch.
"I really should start keeping a store of bouquets for these impromptu monologues of yours," Bossuet mused, regarding his friend's resignedly bowed head.
"That would be nice," came the muffled reply. "Its just a shame I wouldn't be able to see them."
Sighing, Bossuet tipped Joly's head upright. "You're hopeless, did you know that?" he grinned. "Utterly hopeless. Now," he continued. "Watch carefully because I don't want you to tell me later that I've never lifted a finger for you." With a solemnity that made Joly groan, he slowly raised his index finger.
"All right, Bossuet, point ta—"
And he lifted a pair of glasses from the top of Joly's head. "Point taken?" he finished helpfully. Joly's mouth opened and closed several times with no result. "Good." He dangled the spectacles in front of Joly's nose.
Joly smiled sheepishly. "Oh. Well. Thank you." He took them and put them on. "I told you I needed glasses!" he said triumphantly.
Bossuet threw a cushion at him.