"Oh! he is a miser, a curmudgeon, a man who has no regard for anything but money. You will understand, from that, that he will not give his daughter any dowry; on the contrary, he would be more likely to demand one from his son-in-law."
"What does the old skinflint do?"
"Nothing, so he says; but, between ourselves, I think that he lends money at usurious rates. He is rich, but he is always complaining of the hard times; unluckily for him, he married a second time—a woman much younger than himself, who is supposed to have brought him some money; he wouldn't have married her otherwise. But she likes to enjoy herself, to receive company now and then; and that drives Monsieur Mirotaine to despair, for he wants to avoid any expense that can possibly be avoided."
"Mirotaine, did you say, Lucien? Why, I know him; Mirotaine, formerly a bailiff, who lives now on Rue Saint-Louis, in the Marais?"
"That's the very man. So you know him, do you, Philémon? Well, is my portrait of him overdrawn?"
"No, indeed, not at all; he's an old hunks of the first order. He asked me to come to his evenings, but I learned that for refreshments, in summer, he gave cocoa."
"Delightful! And in winter?"
"In winter, it's much worse—hot cocoa. As you can imagine, that didn't attract me; so I have never been."
"Cold cocoa and hot cocoa!" cried Dodichet; "it's hard to believe that. Does the fellow deal in licorice root?"
"It's a pity, for his second wife isn't half bad; I would willingly have flirted a little with her; but I didn't feel that I had the courage to defy the cocoa!"