The chevalier bowed to the widow and walked toward the place where the keys were hanging.
"Well, well!" he cried; "what does this mean, cadédis! my key is not on its nail! Have you it in your possession, Madame Cadichard?"
"I! On my word! Why should I have the key to your room, I should like to know? Do I go to your room? Do I have any occasion to go there?"
"Then it must be Popelinette, the servant, who has it?"
"Apparently!"
"So she is doing my housework, is she? That happens very conveniently, for I will ask her to sew two buttons on my doublet. I suppose that she is supplied with needles and thread, as every good servant should be."
"I don't know whether Popelinette has needles and thread with her; but what I can tell you is this—that she isn't in your room now."
"Then she must be here; do me the favor to call her, Dame Cadichard; I am in haste to go up and make a bit of a toilet."
"I am distressed to be unable to gratify you, monsieur le chevalier, but Popelinette is not in the house; she has gone out; she has gone to do an errand for the new tenant who came a week ago, and who occupies my fine apartment on the first floor."
"Ah! your first floor is let, is it? I am very glad for you, my respected hostess, although I might be justified in complaining of the rather harsh manner in which you have behaved toward me! Capédébious! every quarter day, you make me move—go up one flight—on the pretext that my last lodging is let; whereas only the mice take my place. Do you know, Widow Cadichard, that I should be fully justified in complaining of such treatment?"