"You would express yourself less forcibly, if you had to pay for them."
"Let us say then: carpets are meant to be trodden on."
"Lightly."
"I am not a fairy, Madame."
"I wish you were, Monsieur."
Thrice already, in a burst of confidence, has she told me the story of an egg--an egg which rankles in the memory. Some years ago, it seems, she went to a certain shop (naming it)--a shop she has avoided ever since--to buy an egg; and paid the full price--yes, the full price--of a fresh egg. That particular egg was not fresh. So far from fresh was it, that she experienced considerable difficulty in swallowing it.
A memorable episode occurred about a fortnight ago. I was greeted towards 8 a.m. with moanings in the passage, where Madame tottered around, her entire head swathed in a bundle of nondescript woollen wraps, out of which there peered one steely, vulturesque eye. She looked more than ever like an animated fungus.
Her teeth--her teeth! The pain was past enduring. The whole jaw, rather; all the teeth at one and the same time; they were unaccountably loose and felt, moreover, three inches longer than they ought to feel. Never had she suffered such agony--never in all her life. What could it be?
It was easy to diagnose periostitis, and prescribe tincture of iodine.
"That will cost about a franc," she observed.