So I determined to hunt up Rosette, at her various aunts' abodes, praying that I should have less difficulty than Jason had in his quest of the Golden Fleece. Rosette, by the way, had not a golden fleece, and was to be congratulated therefor.
I hired a cab by the hour, and went first to Faubourg Saint-Denis, corner of Rue Chabrol; that was where Rosette had her legal domicile. I knew the house, having taken her there quite often. I went in and asked an old tailor, presumably the concierge, if Mademoiselle Rosette was with her aunt, Madame Falourdin. I had remembered that aunt's name; as for the others, I had heard them named; but that conglomeration of more or less queer and unusual names had escaped my memory.
"Mamzelle Rosette?" replied the tailor, eying the seat of an old pair of trousers as a cook eyes eggs that are to be served in the shell; "Mamzelle Rosette? No, monsieur, I don't think she be to her aunt's, or I'd have seen her going out and coming in more'n once this morning. You see, monsieur, that girl's just like a worm as has been cut in two—always wriggling.—Bigre! that place is pretty nigh worn out!"
I saw that Rosette was recognized everywhere as being constantly in motion.
"So you think she isn't at Madame Falourdin's?" I said.
"I'd put my thimble in the fire on it. Ha! ha! To be sure, it wouldn't burn, being as it's wrought iron.—Oho! how thin this place is!"
The old fellow was inclined to jest. However, I must find out where to go in search of Rosette.
"Can you tell me, monsieur, where I shall find Mademoiselle Rosette?"
I added to my question the obligatory accompaniment of a piece of silver; but to my amazement the old tailor pushed my hand away, saying:
"That would be robbery, for I don't know where she is.—They want me to make a child's jacket out of this thing, and I couldn't make one gaiter!"