“But I don’t want to buy it.”
“What do you want, then?”
“Only to hire it.”
“That’s different. For a year?”
“For six months?”
“No. I want to hire it for three days.”
“How much will you charge?”
“Thirty thousand francs.”
The gentleman was Lord Northumberland’s steward, who was looking for a lodging for his master for the coronation ceremonies. The proprietor had smelled the Englishman and guessed the steward. The house was satisfactory, and the proprietor held out for his price; the Englishman, being only a Norman, gave way to the Champenois; the duke paid the 30,000 francs, and spent three days in the house, at the rate of 400 francs an hour.
Nodier and I were two explorers. When we travelled together, as we occasionally did, we went on voyages of discovery, he in search of rare books, I in search of ruins. He would go into ecstasies over a Cymbalum Mound with margins, and I over a defaced portal. We had given each other a devil. He said to me: “You are possessed of the demon Ogive.” “And you,” I answered, “of the demon Elzevir.”