"That is a fact!"
And Caffie, concluding to open the door, asked Saniel to enter, and then closed it.
"Come into my office."
They were in a small room filled with papers that had only an old desk and three chairs for furniture; it communicated with the office of the business man, which was larger, but furnished with the same simplicity and strewn with scraps of paper that had a mouldy smell.
"My clerk is ill just now," Caffie said, "and when I am alone I do not like to open the door."
After giving this excuse he offered Saniel a chair, and, seating himself before his desk, lighted by a lamp from which he had taken the shade, he said:
"Doctor, I am ready to listen to you."
He replaced the shade on the lamp.
Saniel made his request concisely, without the details that he had entered into with Glady. He owed three thousand francs to the upholsterer who had furnished his apartment, and as he could not pay immediately he was in danger of being prosecuted.
"Who is the upholsterer?" Caffie asked, while holding his left jaw with his right hand.