"Yours, my boy, and the ladies' at home!"
"Thank you; and your lodgings come on well?"
"So, so. I have always some lodgers for whom I fear the visits of the grabs; but they pay more in consequence."
"Why?"
"How stupid you are! Sometimes I lodge as I buy; to such I no more ask for their passports than I ask you for an invoice."
"Understood! but to those you let as dear as you buy of me cheap."
"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 assistants, 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!"