The example set by the old hawker was contagious, and instead of filling two little glasses only, widow Masson dispensed a bottleful.
"Come, you have done well," cried Mother Maniffret; "my idea has brought you luck."
"Faith! not before it was wanted, either!"
"What! are you complaining of trade too?"
"Ah! don't mention it; it is miserable!"
"There's no trade at all. I scream myself hoarse all day, and choke myself for twopence halfpenny. I don't know what's to come of it all. But you seem to have a nice little custom."
"What's the good of that, with a whole house on one's hands? It's just my luck; the old tenants go, and the new ones don't come."
"What's the matter, then?"
"I think the devil's in it. There was a nice man on the first floor-gone; a decent family on the third, all right except that the man beat his wife every night, and made such a row that no one could sleep—gone also. I put up notices—no one even looks at them! A few months ago—it was the middle of December, the day of the last execution—"
"The 15th, then," said the hawker. "I cried it, so I know; it's my trade, that."