A moment later Freluchon called loudly to his friend:
"I say, Edmond, they turned me out of my lodgings this morning, because I hadn't paid my rent or for my furniture! Did you ever hear such nonsense? Just imagine that my furniture, which I thought was paid for, wasn't!—Well! it didn't take away my spirits; on the contrary, it put me just in the mood to dance and enjoy myself!"
"But I, who lived with you—where am I to sleep?" rejoined Edmond with a laugh; "here am I too without a home!"
"Never fear! we'll find some Roman or some Cupid to give us shelter!—And to think that for lack of four hundred francs I missed the finest match!"
"Nonsense! really?"
"Yes, my dear fellow, a superb match! a flower-maker, thoroughbred, who would have brought me as her dowry, in addition to her virtue, of which I will say nothing, the most agreeable disposition to have me shut up at Clichy,—with or without an eye-glass—in a very short time."
The little woman disguised as a Folly suddenly walked up to Freluchon and said to him under her breath, but in a voice that trembled with anger:
"Monsieur Freluchon, if you don't stop your spiteful remarks, I'll see that you're punished by my partner."
"Ha! ha! ha! so you recognize me now, O fickle Henriette!"
"Yes, I recognize you, but I no longer know you; when a man treats a woman as you treated me this morning, and leaves her in a horrible plight without coming to her assistance, he's a rat! yes, he's worse than a rat, he's a toad![E] and I don't have anything to do with toads!"