"To pass for being a happy as well as a lucky fellow, when, after the fashion of Papa Crétu's dinner, I should be expected to make a meal off a dry crust, while all the tempting dishes contained in a cookery-book were being read to me."
"Oh, nonsense! you will be quite contented to live as I describe. You will find me so grateful for every little act of kindness, so easily pleased, and so little troublesome, that I know you will say, 'Why, after all, I may as well spend my Sunday with her as with any one else.' If you have any time in the evening, and have no objection to come and sit with me, you can have the use of my fire and light. If it would not tire you to read aloud, you would amuse me by reading some nice novel or romance. Better do that than lose your money at cards or billiards; otherwise, if you are occupied at your office, or prefer going to a café, you can just bid me good night when you come in, if I happen still to be up; but should I have gone to bed, why then I will wish you good morning at an early hour next day, by tapping against your wainscot to awaken you. Why, M. Germain, my last fellow lodger, used to pass all his evenings with me in that manner, and never complained of their being dull. He read me all Walter Scott's novels in the course of the winter, which was really very amusing. Sometimes, when it chanced to be a wet Sunday, he would go and buy something at the pastry-cook's, and we used to have a nice little dinner in my room; and afterwards we amused ourselves with reading; and we liked that almost as well as going to the theatre. You see by this that I am not hard to please, but, on the contrary, am always ready to do what I can to make things pleasant and agreeable. And then you were talking about illness. Oh, if ever you should be ill, then, indeed, I should be a comfort to you, a real Sister of Charity! Only ask the Morels what sort of a nurse I am. You don't half know your own good fortune, M. Rodolph; you have drawn a real prize in the lottery of good luck to have me for a neighbour, I can assure you."
"I quite agree with you; but I always was lucky. Apropos of your late fellow lodger, M. Germain, where is he at present?"
"In Paris, I believe."
"Then you do not see much of him now?"
"No, he has never been to see me since he quitted the house."
"But where is he living? And what is he doing at present?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Because," said Rodolph, smiling, "I am jealous of him, and I wish—"
"Jealous!" exclaimed Rigolette, bursting into a fit of laughter. "La, bless you, there is no occasion for that, poor fellow!"