"Where Rosette is? How do you suppose I know? Oh, yes! on my word! As if anyone ever knows where she is!"
"What, madame! isn't she here?"
"No, monsieur.—It breaks my back to scrub this!"
"But where shall I go to find her?"
"I have already seen six of them, counting you, madame. I have called on Mesdames Falourdin, Riflot, Piquette, Dumarteau, Lumignon, and yourself. Who is the one that's left for me to see?"
"Madame Cavalos, Rue de la Lune, No. 19. But I won't answer——"
As she spoke, Madame Chamouillet let a piece of soap slip out of her hands, and my waistcoat had the benefit of it. I had had enough; I fled from the laundress; I seemed to be pursued by soapsuds.
"Rue de la Lune, No. 19," I said to my cabman. Luckily, that took us back into my own neighborhood, and I was sure that this last quest could not be fruitless: Rosette must be there. That was the last of the aunts, and she had told me positively that when she was not with one of them I would find her with another. What a pity that I had not been sent to Rue de la Lune at the outset!
I reached the end of my journeyings. I was directed to Madame Cavalos's lodging on the entresol. I found a very stout, thickset, little old woman, who greeted me with an affable bow and waited for me to speak.