"You are as bad as Ma'me Grégoire! That is just what she inquired of me."
"But though you mightn't choose to acquaint her with what had come to your knowledge—Hark! a ring at the bell," cried Monsieur Georges, interrupting himself as he shuffled out of his seat, and prepared to retreat into his adjoining chamber. "If 'tis any one for me, say I'm gone out, and shan't be at home till evening."
"Don't flurry yourself," replied the housekeeper, moving towards the ante-room; "'tis only Guguste, come up to varnish your boots and bring your toupet from the barber's. Don't you hear him scratching the panel? That is the signal by which I know his ring from any other person's."
And no sooner had she charily opened the door, and prepared to lock it again after admitting him, than the quick-witted gamin, in his fustian blouse, and barret-cap, though thread-bare, set jauntily on one side, insinuated himself into the hated apartment.
"What makes you so late, sirrah?" demanded the mummy in the washed-out calico dressing-gown, grudging the foundling even the savoury steam of the viands that still circled in the eating-room.
"'Tis only half-after eleven, sir," replied the drudge. "You desired there might be no noise in the apartment till half-after eleven."
"'Tis three minutes after the half-hour."
"Mademoiselle does not choose me to come in, till breakfast is cleared away, and the things ready to be washed up," said Guguste, not caring to hear.
"In that case you have no right to be here now. But you know my orders, that you are to enter this room with my dressing things every day at half-past eleven. Where have you been idling for the last three minutes?"