"I can't hear it at all now."
"Then it will go all by itself. Au revoir, my dear neighbor; overjoyed to make your acquaintance. You will allow me to come and inquire for your health?"
"Whenever you please."
"I shall please often. Au revoir then; at your service; don't move."
"Oh! there's no danger of that!"
"To be sure; I keep forgetting your gout; what a thoughtless creature I am!—Your servant."
Saint-Arthur bowed to the ground this time, then left the house, saying to Beauvinet, whom he passed on the way:
"I have seen the gentleman who rooms beside me, and he is a delightful man, a man of the greatest merit, a man whom I expect to see a great deal of; and sapristi! no one had better speak ill of him in my presence; whoever does so will have me to reckon with!"
The young man of the house was thunderstruck at these words, and in his effort to recover his wits, he pulled his wig over his left ear.