e's reading-room," he continued, after a pause, "was in
the Rue Coquenard, just a step or two from the Rue Pigalle where Maxime
was living. The said Mlle. Chocardelle lived at the back on the garden
side of the house, beyond a big dark place where the books were kept.
Antonia left her aunt to look after the business--"

"Had she an aunt even then?" exclaimed Malaga. "Hang it all, Maxime did
things handsomely."

"Alas! it was a real aunt," said Desroches; "her name was--let me
see----"

"Ida Bonamy," said Bixiou.

"So as Antonia's aunt took a good deal of the work off her hands, she
went to bed late and lay late of a morning, never showing her face at
the desk until the afternoon, some time between two and four. From the
very first her appearance was enough to draw custom. Several elderly
men in the quarter used to come, among them a retired coach-builder,
one Croizeau. Beholding this miracle of female loveliness through the
window-panes, he took it into his head to read the newspapers in the
beauty's reading-room; and a sometime custom-house officer, named
Denisart, with a ribbon in his button-hole, followed the example.
Croizeau chose to look upon Denisart as a rival. '_Monsieur_,' he said
afterwards, 'I did not know what to buy for you!'

"That speech should give you an idea of the man. The Sieur Croizeau
happens to belong to a particular class of old man which should be known
as 'Coquerels' since Henri Monnier's time; so well did Monnier render
the piping voice, the little mannerisms, little queue, little sprinkling
of powder, little movements of the head, prim little manner, and
tripping gait in the part of Coquerel in _La Famille Improvisee_. This
Croizeau used to hand over his halfpence with a flourish and a 'There,
fair lady!'

"Mme. Ida Bonamy the aunt was not long in finding out through a servant
that Croizeau, by popular report of the neighborhood of the Rue de
Buffault, where he lived, was a man of exceeding stinginess, possessed
of forty thousand francs per annum. A week after the instalment of the
charming librarian he was delivered of a pun:

"'You lend me books (livres), but I give you plenty of francs in
return,' said he.

"A few days later he put on a knowing little air, as much as to say, 'I
know you are engaged, but my turn will come one day; I am a widower.'

"He always came arrayed in fine linen, a cornflower blue coat, a
paduasoy waistcoat, black trousers, and black ribbon bows on the do