“You know very well, Georget, that nothing tires me so much as compliments!”
“Then you must get tired very often! you receive them all day!”
“I can’t prevent the gentlemen who buy flowers of me from talking nonsense to me! but it seems to me that you might get along without it.”
“So what I say to you is nonsense, is it?”
“Instead of idling away your time every market day, walking back and forth in front of my stand, wouldn’t you do better to work?”
“Do you mean that you don’t like to have me stop in front of your shop sometimes, mamzelle?”
“I don’t say that, but I ask you if you would not do better to work.”
“All right, mamzelle, that’s enough. I won’t stand near you any more, never fear! If you don’t like it, why, I——”
“Oh! how wrong-headed you are, Monsieur Georget! a body can’t give you a little advice, eh?”
But the young messenger was no longer listening to the pretty flower girl; he walked away with a very pronounced frown, and sat down upon one of the steps of the Château d’Eau. He had hardly settled down when another youngster of nineteen, tall, strong and active, with his cap cocked over one ear in true roistering fashion, came and stood in front of him, crying: