," she said; "you would not be the ruin of my establishment,
would you, eh? There's a dear, kind soul. You see what a pass these
gentlemen have brought me to; just go up to your room for this evening."

"Never a bit of it!" cried the boarders. "She must go, and go this
minute!"

"But the poor lady has had no dinner," said Poiret, with piteous
entreaty.

"She can go and dine where she likes," shouted several voices.

"Turn her out, the spy!"

"Turn them both out! Spies!"

"Gentlemen," cried Poiret, his heart swelling with the courage that love
gives to the ovine male, "respect the weaker sex."

"Spies are of no sex!" said the painter.

"A precious sexorama!"

"Turn her into the streetorama!"

"Gentlemen, this is not manners! If you turn people out of the house,
it ought not to be done so unceremoniously and with no notice at all. We
have paid our money, and we are not going," said Poiret, putting on his
cap, and taking a chair beside Mlle. Michonneau, with whom Mme. Vauquer
was remonstrating.

"Naughty boy!" said the painter, with a comical look; "run away, naughty
little boy!"

"Look here," said Bianchon; "if you do not go, all the rest of us will,"
and the boarders, to a man, made for the sitting-room-door.

"Oh! mademoiselle, what is to be done?" cried Mme. Vauquer. "I am a
ruined woman. You can't stay here; they will go further, do something
violent."

Mlle. Michonneau rose to her feet.

"She is going!--She is not going!--She is going!--No, she isn't."

These alternate exclamations, and a suggestion of hostile intentions,
borne out by the behavior of the insurgents, compelled Mlle. Michonneau
to take her departure. She made some stipulations, speaking in a low
voice in her hostess' ear, and then--"I shall go to Mme. Buneaud's," she
said, with a threatening look.

"Go where you please, mademoiselle," said Mme. Vauquer, who regarded
this choice of an opposition establishment as an atrocious insult. "Go
and lodge with the Buneaud; the wine would give a cat the colic, and the
food is cheap and nasty."

The boarders stood aside in two rows to let her pass; not a word was
spoken. Poiret looked so wistfully after Mlle. Michonneau, and so
artlessly revealed that he was in two minds whether to go or stay, that
the boarders, in their joy at being quit of Mlle. Michonneau, burst out
laughing at the sight of him.

"Hist!--st!--st! Poiret," shouted the painter. "Hallo! I say, Poiret,
hallo!" The _employe