“What’s that? an outrage! I’ve brought what you ordered.”
“You dare to bring me a tallow candle—for this certainly is tallow, isn’t it?”
“Of course it’s a tallow candle, as you want to use sealing wax.”
“But a wax candle is what you ought to bring; as if one could use anything else! Since when has it been permissible to offer tenants a tallow candle? What do you take me for, my dear?”
“Your dear! Why, monsieur, I take you—I mean I don’t take you at all; I bring you the best that I could find; there ain’t no wax candle that’s been used, and madame said that this was good enough to light your wax.”
“And this place dares to call itself a hotel! There are furnished lodgings for masons here, and nothing else!”
“Take that candle away, I say. Pouah! how it smells! Let’s make haste.”
He sealed his letter, using a topaz set in a ring, which he wore as a charm on his watch chain; then he dismissed the maid, who muttered as she left the room:
“What airs he puts on! If he was a pacha, he couldn’t put on any more. Why don’t he have a hotel of his own?”