"His boots varnished like looking-glasses."
"Thanks to me!" pursued Guguste.
"His hat smoothed as with an iron."
"Thanks to me,—thanks to me!"
"His jabot plaited as if by machinery, and white as snow; while his great diamond studs look out like eyes of fire from the frilling,—"
"Thank to—no, not thanks to me!" cried Guguste. "I must own that Ma'mselle Berthe, who is so much in the starch line, still presides in the washing and ironing department; and, as to the brilliants, which you say shine in the dark like cats' eyes, master keeps them like the apple of his own."
"I wonder what makes him so wonderful particular about his dress after nightfall?" said Madame Grégoire, peering through her spectacles into the face which she was preparing to cross-examine. "Humph?"
"Can't say," replied Guguste, tilting the soup-tureen to transfer the last drop of warm salt-water to his own plate.
"You mean won't; you could fast enough if you would, child!" said Madame Grégoire pettishly.
"Bah!" cried the gamin, (who was perhaps of opinion that the kicks, which, more than half-pence, constituted his salary in Monsieur Georges's service, formed a tie upon his discretions,)—"how can you, Ma'me Grégoire, who are such a very sensible woman, imagine it possible, that while I am clearing away the dinner things down stairs in the porter's lodge, or up stairs in Ma'mselle Berthe's chamber, I can have an eye to master's proceedings after he has crossed his threshold! Maybe he goes to the opera."