"Have you seen him?"
"Who?"
"Is he gone?"
"Who, Alfred?"
"Cabrion!"
"Has he dared—" asked the porteress.
M. Pipelet, as mute as the statue of the commandant, like that redoubtable spectre, bowed his head twice with an affirmative air.
"What! has M. Cabrion been here?" inquired Rigolette, repressing a violent desire to laugh.
"What! has the monster been unchained on Alfred?" said Madame Pipelet. "Oh, if I had been there with my broom, he should have swallowed it, handle and all! But tell us, Alfred, all about this horrid affair."
M. Pipelet made signs with his hand that he was about to speak, and they listened to the man with the bell-crowned hat in religious silence, whilst he expressed himself in these terms, and in a voice of deep emotion: