The singer recognized her Hulot only by his voice.
“What? you, poor old man?—On my honor, you look like a twenty-franc piece that the Jews have sweated and the money-changers refuse.”
“Alas, yes,” replied Hulot; “I am snatched from the jaws of death! But you are as lovely as ever. Will you be kind?”
“That depends,” said she; “everything is relative.”
“Listen,” said Hulot; “can you put me up for a few days in a servant’s room under the roof? I have nothing—not a farthing, not a hope; no food, no pension, no wife, no children, no roof over my head; without honor, without courage, without a friend; and worse than all that, liable to imprisonment for not meeting a bill.”
“Poor old fellow! you are without most things.—Are you also sans culotte?”
“You laugh at me! I am done for,” cried the Baron. “And I counted on you as Gourville did on Ninon.”
“And it was a ‘real lady,’ I am told who brought you to this,” said Josepha. “Those precious sluts know how to pluck a goose even better than we do!—Why, you are like a corpse that the crows have done with—I can see daylight through!”
“Time is short, Josepha!”
“Come in, old boy, I am alone, as it happens, and my people don’t know you. Send away your trap. Is it paid for?”