"When it comes into your alley, Father Micou."
"You're a wag. Another drain, yes, just one more."
"Well, it must be my last, for then I must cut. By the way, doesn't Robin, the Gros-Boiteux, lodge here still?"
"Yes, up-stairs, on the same landing as the mother and daughter. He's pretty nearly run through his money he earned in gaol."
"I say, mind your eye,—he's outlawed."
"I know it, but I can't get rid of him. I think he's got something in hand, for little Tortillard came here the other night along with Barbillon. I'm afraid he'll do something to my lodgers, so, when his fortnight is up, I shall bundle him, telling him his room is taken for an ambassador, or the husband of Madame Saint-Ildefonse, my independent lady."
"An independent lady?"
"I believe you! Three rooms and a cabinet in the front,—nothing less,—newly furnished, to say nothing of an attic for her servant. Eighty francs a month, and paid in advance by her uncle, to whom she gives one of her spare rooms when he comes up from the country. But I believe his country-house is about the Rue Vivienne, or the Rue St. Honoré."
"I twig! She's independent because the old fellow pays."
"Hush! Here's her maid."