"Well, if you'd like to lodge at my grandmother's, that'll cost you twenty-eight sous a week, pay in advance."
"I can pay twenty-eight sous."
"Now, I don't promise you a fine room all to yourself at that price; there'll be six in the same room, but you'll have a bed, some sheets and a coverlet. Everybody ain't got that."
"I'd like it and thank you very much."
"My grandmother don't only take in lodgers who can only pay twenty-eight sous. We've got some very fine rooms in our house. Our boarders are employed at the factories. There's Monsieur Fabry, the engineer of the building; Monsieur Mombleux, the head clerk, and Mr. Bendit, who has charge of the foreign correspondence. If you ever speak to him always call him Mr. Benndite. He's an Englishman, and he gets mad if you pronounce his name 'Bendit.' He thinks that one wants to insult him, just as though one was calling him 'Thief'!"
"I won't forget; besides, I know English."
"You know English! You!"
"My mother was English."
"So, so! Well, that'll be fine for Mr. Bendit, but he'd be more pleased if you knew every language. His great stunt on Sunday is to read prayers that are printed in twenty-five languages. When he's gone through them once, he goes over them again and again. Every Sunday he does the same thing. All the same, he's a very fine man."