“A bouquet! what! it can’t be that it’s Glumeau’s birthday?”

“Why, isn’t this Saint-Honoré’s day?”

“Sapristi! and we never thought of it, Eléonore?

“That is true, my dear; we are very thoughtless!”

“All the same, my dear friend, I wish you many happy returns; the bouquet will come later!”

“Thanks! thanks!” replied Glumeau, with a significant glance at his wife. “At this moment, a bouquet isn’t what I want.”

“I must go and complete my toilet,” said the buxom Lolotte, answering her husband’s signs with a wink. “You will excuse me, won’t you?”

“Excuse you? why, of course.”

“Yes, go and do—do what you have to do!” cried Glumeau, staring at his feet with a distressed expression. “And I will come too.”

“You see, we came too early!” said Madame Dufournelle; “we are in the way.”