"So you are beginning your ructions already?" laughed Clairette, "I told you what a handful you would be. Oh, well then, just as you like, old dear!—in this business a girl may meet with a worse kind of jealousy than yours."
"PARDON, YOU ARE MADEMOISELLE GIRARD!"
A newsvendor passed along the terrace of the Café d'Harcourt bawling La Voix Parisienne. The Frenchman at my table made a gesture of aversion. Our eyes met; I said:
"You do not like La Voix?"
He answered with intensity:
"I loathe it."
"What's its offence?"
The wastrel frowned; he fiddled with his frayed and filthy collar.
"You revive painful associations; you ask me for a humiliating story," he murmured—and regarded his empty glass.
I can take a hint as well as most people.