"Must take care of one"s self. I have a cousin who keeps a fine hotel in the Rue Saint Honore, while his wife is a mantua-maker, who employs as many as twenty a.s.sistants, either at her shop, or at their own homes."
"Say now, old obstinacy, there must be some pretty ones there?"
"I guess so! there are two or three that I have seen sometimes bringing in their work. Crimini! ain"t they nice! One little puss, who works at home, always laughing, called Rigolette. Oh, my lark! what a pity I ain"t twenty!"
"Come, come, papa, put yourself out, or I"ll cry fire!"
"But she is virtuous, my boy; she is virtuous."
"Get out! and you say that your cousin--"
"Keeps a very good house, and, as she is of the same number as little Rigolette--"
"Virtuous?"
"Exactly."
"Over!"
"She will not have lodgers without pa.s.sports or papers; but if any present themselves, knowing I am not very particular, she sends them to me."
"And they pay in consequence?"
"Always."
"But are they all friends of the family, those who have no papers?"
"No. Ah, now, speaking of that, my cousin sent me, a few days ago, a customer. May the devil burn me, if I can understand it! Come, another turn?"
"Agreed; the liquor is good. Your health, Micou!"
"Yours, lad! I say, then, that the other day my cousin sent me a customer whom I cannot make out. Just imagine a mother and her daughter, who had a very seedy look, it is true; they carried their luggage in a handkerchief. Well, although they must, of course, be n.o.body, since they had no papers, and they lodge by the fortnight; since they have been here they do not stir out; no one comes to see them, my pal--no one! and yet, if they were not so thin and so pale, they"d be two fine women, the little one above all. She is not more than fifteen at least; she is as white as a white rabbit, with large black eyes--large as that! What eyes! what eyes!"
"You"ll get on fire again; I"ll call the engines! What do these women do for a living?"
"I tell you I comprehend nothing about it; they must be virtuous, and yet no papers; without counting that they receive letters without address, their name must be bad to write."
"How is that?"
"They sent, this morning, my nephew Andre to the office of the letters to be called for, to reclaim a letter addressed to Madame X. Z. The letter was to come from Normandy, from a place called Aubiers. They wrote that on a piece of paper, so that Andre might get the letter.
You see they can be no great things, women who take the name of X and a Z."
"They will never pay you."
"It is not for an old ape like me to learn to make faces. They have taken a room without a fireplace, for which I make them pay twenty francs a fortnight, and in advance. They are, perhaps, sick; for two days they have not come down. It certainly is not from indigestion; for I do not think they have cooked anything since they have been here."
"If you had only such lodgers as they, Micou--"
"That comes and goes. If I lodge people without pa.s.sports, I lodge great folks also; I have at this moment two traveling clerks, a post-office carrier, the leader of the orchestra of the Cafe des Aveugles, and an independent lady, all very genteel people. They save the reputation of the house, if the police wish to examine too closely; they are not lodgers by night, not they; they are lodgers in the full light of the sun."
"Whenever it shines in your pa.s.sage, Daddy--"
"Joker, one more turn."
"And the last, for I must take my hook. By-the-bye, does Robin, the big lame man, lodge here yet?"
"Upstairs, next door to the mother and daughter. He has consumed all his prison money, and I believe he has none left."
"I say, look out; he"s broke his ticket-of-leave."
"I know it well; but I can"t get rid of him. I believe he is after something. Little Tortillard, the son of Bras-Rouge, came here the other night with Barbillon, to look for him. I am afraid he will do some harm to my good lodgers that d.a.m.nable Robin. As soon as his term is up, I shall put him out, telling him his room is engaged by an emba.s.sador, or by the husband of Madame de Saint Ildefonso?"
"The lady?"
"I should think so! Three rooms and a cabinet on the front, nearly furnished, without counting a garret for her female servant, eighty francs a month, and paid in advance by her uncle, to whom she gives one of her rooms as a stopping-place when he comes from the country.
After all, I believe his country house is the Rue Vivienne, Rue Saint Honore, or in the environs of those places."
"Understood! she is an independent lady, because the old one pays her rent."
"Hush, here is her maid."
A woman rather advanced in life, wearing a white ap.r.o.n of doubtful purity, entered the shop. "What can I do for you, Madame Charles?"
"Daddy Micou, your nephew is not here?"
"He has gone on an errand to the post-office; he will soon return."
"M. Badinot wishes he would take this letter to its address; there is no answer, but it is very urgent."
"In a quarter of an hour it shall be on the way."
"Let him hurry."
"Be easy." The maid retired.
"That"s the servant of one of your lodgers, Micou?"
"Madame Saint Ildefonso"s. But M. Badinot is her uncle; he came yesterday from the country, "answered Micou. "But see, now, what fine acquaintances they have! I told you they were people of style; he writes to a viscount."
"No!"
"Well, look: "To his Lordship the Viscount of Saint Remy, Rue de Chaillot. Haste, haste! (_Private_)." I hope that when one lodges people who have uncles who write to viscounts, one can very well overlook a poor devil in the fourth story who has no pa.s.sport!"
"I think so. Well, good-bye for the present, Micou; I am going to fasten my dog and cart to your door; I will carry what I have to carry myself. Have my goods and money ready on my return."
"All shall be ready. But, I say, before you go I must tell you, since you have been here, I have watched you."
"Well?"