“What’s that? He smashed all his furniture? Had he gone mad, then?”
“I tell you he sold everything, to get money.”
“Oh! sold his furniture! Why don’t you say what you mean—with your Zurich French!”
“You see how badly off he must have been,” said Denise, “to sell everything he had!”
“That don’t prove anything, my dear girl; in the first place, as he was leaving Paris, he didn’t need any furniture; and then there are people who prefer to live in furnished lodgings. For my part, I’ve sold my furniture four or five times, and yet I stay in Paris; you see that every day.—But after all, in which direction has the fellow gone? Didn’t he tell you, monsieur le concierge?”
“Yes; he’s gone round the world.”
“The deuce! that’s a definite address! Think of writing: ‘To Monsieur So-and-So, going round the world!’—And he’s taken Bertrand with him, has he?”
“Yes, I’m fery sorry for it, because Pertrand was just beginning to work fery gut.”
“Bertrand, work? at what, pray?”
“At making preeches, bantaloons; it was me who taught him.”