“Their name—wait a minute; I heard what it was; it’s near La Courtille.”

“Their name is near La Courtille! Really, I don’t understand.—Well, Droguet, have you finished your pirouetting? I have zigzags before my eyes, it makes me see stars to watch him whirl round like that; when I married him I didn’t get a husband, but a teetotum—nothing else!”

Madame Jarnouillard soon increased this amiable party by her presence.

“My compliments to the company,” she said; “I came to inform you that the confectioner’s estate is sold at last; but I’ll wager that you all know it.

“Yes, yes—we know it.”

“But no one can remember the purchaser’s name.”

“Monsieur de Belleville.”

“That’s it, yes, that’s it; didn’t I tell you it was in the outskirts of Paris?”

“Why, you didn’t tell us so at all; Monsieur Belleville; that’s a real name.”

De Belleville!”