“Have you come to order trousers or a coat?” continued my neighbor. “It is just, the right time, for I have nothing to do, and I will make ‘em up for you at once, and in the latest style, although that miserable concierge presumed to complain of my skill. The idiot! he wanted me to make a new coat for his son out of an old pair of breeches that had already been turned three times.”
“I have not come for a coat or a waistcoat, but to make a request of you.”
“A request?”
“You sing a great deal, monsieur.”
“Parbleu! I have nothing else to do.”
“You sing very well, certainly.”
“Yes, I have some voice; we Germans are all musicians; it is born in us.”
“I know it; but do you think that for a person who works with his brain, who is obliged to think, to reflect, it is very pleasant to hear someone singing all the time?”
“What has all that got to do with me?”
“Look you, monsieur, I will come to the point; your singing inconveniences and annoys me; and if you would be obliging enough to sing less, or not so loud, I would beg you to take this as a slight token of my gratitude.”