"Zi—Zi—Zan—Zan—Monsieur Brillant. You make me sick!"
"And so do you me, you beast!"
"Par la mordieu! and you're a beast yourself!" cried Roncherolle, sitting up in his chair and grasping his cane again and hammering on the partition and on the floor. "Ah! you have the effrontery to keep on with your parrot lessons! Dare to begin again, and I will twist your pupil's neck, and throw his master out of the window! What a house! What service they have! Here I've been pounding and ringing for an hour, and no one comes! I say there! waiter! chambermaid!"
Again Saint-Arthur and his parrot held their peace. But the little dandy also jerked all the bell-cords that he could find in the three rooms of which his apartment consisted.
At that jangling of bells, the waiter and the chambermaid hastened up to their tenants on the third floor. The chambermaid no longer entered Roncherolle's room, because he had several times told her to go and wash herself, and then to go to the scrubber's. The waiter, who was called the "young man," and who had worked in the house for more than twenty years, was probably quite fifty-five years old. He was a man of medium height, but endowed with a very coquettish embonpoint, and a prominent abdomen, which, however, did not prevent him from having a wrinkled face, and a small wig which did not come down to his ears, and which he was constantly occupied in jerking to the right or to the left. Having never worn any other costume than a pair of short trousers and a small round jacket, like the waiters at restaurants, Beauvinet—that was the "young man's" name—always wore a white apron, one half of which he turned up to conceal the other half, when it had ceased to be spotlessly clean. All in all, Beauvinet was more presentable than the chambermaid and it was he who answered Roncherolle's bell when he rang.
So Beauvinet presented himself before the gouty gentleman, his apron turned up, and pulling his wig over his right ear, which necessarily caused the left side to rise; but one ordinarily obeys the most urgent need, and it was only on extraordinary occasions that Beauvinet pulled both sides of his wig at once; even then he dared not do it except with great precaution, because one day when he indulged in that manœuvre, he had heard an ominous cracking on the top of his head, as if his wig were about to be transformed into a crown; and the perquisites of his position were too small to allow him to purchase a new wig.
"Monsieur rang, monsieur knocked, monsieur called, I believe?" said Beauvinet, showing his bloated and wrinkled face.
"Sacrebleu! yes, I did ring and I did knock; I would have set the house on fire if there had been any fire on the hearth."
"Fire! mon Dieu! is monsieur very cold? Why, it is warm——"
"Hold your tongue! and answer."