"Oh! that's easy enough! I'll ask Sara and Clara and Cora—they know so many of those women. In two days I shall be able to give you all the information you want concerning this honest tradeswoman."
"Very well. To assist you in your investigations, you can say that she arranges marriages."
"That's very definite! they all do."
"Really! I fancy that they disarrange a good many too. No matter—do my errand; I leave you to your radish and your fried potatoes; don't eat too much. You will see me again in three days; and if I have found my man, we will have, not stewed rabbit, but a salmi of truffled partridges together."
Three days later, Dodichet called again on Mademoiselle Boulotte, and found her still at work on her mineral rouge, for which she hoped to obtain a patent. Dodichet was radiant; he waltzed into the room, and began by taking the figurante in his arms and whirling her about without giving her time to put down her brick and her hammer, despite her cries:
"Let go, I say! or, at any rate, let me put down my brick!"
"Do you know the waltz from L'Auberge des Adrets, Boulotte—the one Frédérick used to dance so well in his picturesque costume as Robert Macaire? I can dance that waltz just a little."
"Let me put down my brick. Pshaw! there it goes, and it's all smashed!"
"Well! as long as you were going to smash it with a hammer anyway, you have so much less to do."
"That's different. I shall lose half of it on the floor! What in the world's the matter with you to-day that makes you so gay?"