"Your house! By jingo, you make a good deal of fuss about your house. We shall see presently whether you receive any suspicious persons."
"What do you mean by that?" cried Touquet, angrily.
"Hush! Don't make so much noise, I beg of you. Don't wake the cat up, she is asleep."
"Chaudoreille, I'm losing patience. Say what you want, or I'll be the death of you."
"Well, what the deuce! I came to do you a service, and it seems to me that that shouldn't make you angry. Listen now, but I beg of you don't lose your temper, for that will make me break the thread of my discourse."
The barber restrained himself as well as he could, and Chaudoreille, after passing his cuff over the edge of his hat to give it a lustre, commenced his story in a low voice,—
"I was going this morning to Saint-Germain's fair and found myself without money, something which very often happens with me. I had eaten nothing since yesterday."
"You have eaten and drunk since, I'll answer for it."
"Yes, certainly, thanks to my genius. I was making some rather sad reflections on the instability of my luck at piquet, the treacherous chances of lansquenet and the lack of solidity in gambling—"
"I should like to make you reflect at this minute on the strength of a good stick."