"That comes and goes. If I lodge people without passports, 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 passage, 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 damnable Robin. As soon as his term is up, I shall put him out, telling him his room is engaged by an embassador, 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."