"I will tell the master."
She went off, and soon returned. The master followed her.
He was a man of repulsive plainness. His little squinting black eyes were scarcely visible between the narrow fissure of his absurdly wrinkled eyelids; his mouth, widely removed from his long, thin nose, destitute of teeth and adorned with a few stiff sparse hairs, gave a sly and mean expression to his pock-marked countenance.
"You want to get rid of that young woman?" said he, rolling one eyeball, while the other one disappeared round the corner of his nose.
"To get rid of my child!" screamed the old man. "I only consent to part from her to protect her from misery and want."
"Unfortunately I have more women now than I need; and they are every one of them quite as pretty as she is. My house is entirely full."
"I will look elsewhere," said the old man, making a pretence of going.
"Don't be in such a hurry," said the landlord; "if your demands are not too extravagant, perhaps we can come to terms."
He made the man a sign to follow him into the entrance hall from which he had just come; this hall looked out on a garden, and was quite empty.
"What can your girl do, I say?" asked the frightful squint-eyed fellow.