"Very well, Mrs. Pipelet; I do not forget my promise. Here is what I promised if you should succeed in getting a situation for this girl, who embarrassed me."
"Wait until to-morrow, my prince of lodgers," said Mrs. Pipelet, refusing the money; "for, perhaps, he will change his mind when I take Cecily to him this evening."
"I do not think he will change his mind; but where is she?"
"In the cabinet belonging to M. Robert's apartments; in obedience to your orders she does not stir from them; she seems as resigned as a lamb, although she has eyes—oh! what eyes! But, apropos of M. Robert, isn't he an intriguer? When he came himself to superintend the packing of his furniture, did he not tell me that if there came any letters here addressed to Madame Vincent, they were for him, and to send them to No. 5 Rue Mondovi. He to be addressed under the name of a woman, the beautiful bird! how cunning it is! But this is not all; did he not have the impudence to ask me what had become of his wood? 'Your wood! why not your forest at once?' I answered. Now it is true, for two mean cart-loads of nothing at all—one of drift and the other new wood, for he did not buy all new wood—the save-penny made a fuss! His wood? 'I burned all your wood,' said I, 'to save your furniture from the damp; otherwise mushrooms would have sprung up on your embroidered cap, and on your glowworm robe de chambre that you wore so often while you were waiting for the little lady who quizzed you."
A heavy plaintive groan from Alfred interrupted. "There is my beauty dreaming, he is going to wake up; you will allow me, my prince of lodgers?"
"Certainly; I have, besides, some more questions to ask."
"Well! my sweet, how do you feel?" said Mrs. Pipelet to her husband, opening the curtains; "here is M. Rudolph! he knows the new infamy of Cabrion: he pities you with all his heart."
"Oh, sir!" said Alfred, turning his head in a languishing manner toward Rudolph; "this time I shall not get over it; the monster has stabbed me to the heart. I am the subject of the placards of the capital; my name can be read on all the walls side by side with this scoundrel's. 'Pipelet & Cabrion,' with an enormous and! I! united to this infernal blackguard in the eyes of the capital of Europe!"
"M. Rudolph knows it; but what he does not know is your adventure of last night with those two strapping women."
"Oh! sir, he kept his most monstrous infamy for the last; this passed all bounds," said Alfred, in a mournful tone.