eh? There are a dozen of them."

"I have never been to more than two--the two who came here."

"There is madame moving overhead; I shall have to go, or she will raise
a fine racket. Just keep an eye on the milk, Christophe; don't let the
cat get at it."

Sylvie went up to her mistress' room.

"Sylvie! How is this? It's nearly ten o'clock, and you let me sleep like
a dormouse! Such a thing has never happened before."

"It's the fog; it is that thick, you could cut it with a knife."

"But how about breakfast?"

"Bah! the boarders are possessed, I'm sure. They all cleared out before
there was a wink of daylight."

"Do speak properly, Sylvie," Mme. Vauquer retorted; "say a blink of
daylight."

"Ah, well, madame, whichever you please. Anyhow, you can have breakfast
at ten o'clock. La Michonnette and Poiret have neither of them stirred.
There are only those two upstairs, and they are sleeping like the logs
they are."

"But, Sylvie, you put their names together as if----"

"As if what?" said Sylvie, bursting into a guffaw. "The two of them make
a pair."

"It is a strange thing, isn't it, Sylvie, how M. Vautrin got in last
night after Christophe had bolted the door?"

"Not at all, madame. Christophe heard M. Vautrin, and went down and
undid the door. And here are you imagining that----?"

"Give me my bodice, and be quick and get breakfast ready. Dish up the
rest of the mutton with the potatoes, and you can put the stewed pears
on the table, those at five a penny."

A few moments later Mme. Vauquer came down, just in time to see the cat
knock down a plate that covered a bowl of milk, and begin to lap in all
haste.

"Mistigris!" she cried.

The cat fled, but promptly returned to rub against her ankles.

"Oh! yes, you can wheedle, you old hypocrite!" she said. "Sylvie!
Sylvie!"

"Yes, madame; what is it?"

"Just see what the cat has done!"

"It is all that stupid Christophe's fault. I told him to stop and lay
the table. What has become of him? Don't you worry, madame; Father
Goriot shall have it. I will fill it up with water, and he won't know
the difference; he never notices anything, not even what he eats."

"I wonder where the old heathen can have gone?" said Mme. Vauquer,
setting the plates round the table.

"Who knows? He is up to all sorts of tricks."

"I have overslept myself," said Mme. Vauquer.

"But madame looks as fresh as a rose, all the same."

The door bell rang at that moment, and