"Why, what does she do besides?"
"She keeps what you would call a pawnbroker's shop upon a small scale."
"I see; your second-floor lodger lends out again the money she derives from her skill in foretelling events by reading the cards."
"Exactly so; only she is cheaper and more easy to deal with than the regular pawnbrokers: she does not confuse you with a heap of paper tickets and duplicates,—nothing of the sort. Now suppose: Some one brings Mother Burette a shirt worth three francs; well, she lends ten sous upon condition of being paid twenty at the end of the week, otherwise she keeps the shirt for ever. That is simple enough, is it not? Always in round figures, you see,—a child could understand it. And the odd things she has brought her as pledges you would scarcely believe. You can hardly guess what she sometimes is asked to lend upon. I saw her once advance money upon a gray parrot that swore like a trooper,—the blackguard did."
"A parrot? But to what amount did she advance money?"
"I'll tell you; the parrot was well known; it belonged to a Madame Herbelot, the widow of a factor, living close by, and it was also well understood that Madame Herbelot valued the parrot as much as she did her life. Well, Mother Burette said to her, 'I will lend you ten francs on your bird, but if by this day week at twelve o'clock I do not receive twenty francs with interest (it would amount to that in round numbers), if I am not paid my twenty francs, with the expenses of his keep, I shall give your Polly a trifling dose of arsenic mixed with his food.' She knew her customer well, bless you! However, by this threat Mother Burette received her twenty francs at the end of seven days, and Madame Herbelot got back her disagreeable, screaming parrot."
"Mother Burette has no other way of living besides the two you have named, I suppose?"
"Not that I know of. I don't know, however, what to say of some rather sly and secret transactions, carried on in a small room she never allows any one to enter, except M. Bras Rouge and an old one-eyed woman, called La Chouette."
Rodolph opened his eyes with unmixed astonishment as these names sounded on his ear, and the porteress, interpreting the surprise of her future lodger according to her own notions, said:
"That name would make any one stare with astonishment. Certainly La Chouette is uncommonly odd; is it not?"