y ask you sixteen sous for
a cup of coffee alone on the place de l'Odeon, and then you have to give
a sou or two to the waiter. Here you have no trouble; you can breakfast
in slippers."

"Very well, very well," said Godefroid.

"Without Madame Cartier who supplies me with milk and eggs and herbs
I couldn't manage it. You ought to go and see their establishment,
monsieur. Ha! it's fine! They employ five journeymen gardeners, and
Nepomucene goes there in summer to draw water for them; they hire him of
me as a waterer. They make lots of money out of melons and strawberries.
It seems monsieur takes quite an interest in Monsieur Bernard,"
continued the widow in dulcet tones; "or he wouldn't be responsible for
his debts. Perhaps he doesn't know all that family owes. There's the
lady who keeps the circulating library on the place Saint-Michel; she is
always coming here after thirty francs they owe her,--and she needs it,
God knows! That sick woman in there, she reads, reads, reads! Two sous a
volume makes thirty francs in three months."

"That means a hundred volumes a month," said Godefroid.

"Ah! there's the old man going now to fetch a roll and cream for his
daughter's tea,--yes, tea! she lives on tea, that lady. She drinks it
twice a day. And twice a week she has to have sweet things. Oh! she's
dainty! The old man buys cakes and pates from the pastry cook in the rue
de Buci. He don't care what he spends, if it's for her. He calls her his
daughter! It ain't often that men of his age do for a daughter what he
does for her! He just kills himself, he and Auguste too, for that woman.
Monsieur is just like me; I'd give anything to see her. Monsieur Berton
says she's a monster,--something like those they show for money. That's
the reason they've come to live here, in this lonely quarter. Well, so
monsieur thinks of dining at Madame Machillot's, does he?"

"Yes, I think of making an arrangement there."

"Monsieur, it isn't that I want to interfere, but I must say, comparing
food with food, you'd do much better to dine in the rue de Tournon; you
needn't engage by the month, and you'll find a better table."

"Whereabouts in the rue de Tournon?"

"At the successors to Madame Giraud. That's where the gentlemen upstairs
go; they are satisfied, and more than satisfied."

"Well, I'll take your advice and dine there to-day."

"My dear monsieur," said the woman, emboldened by the good-nature which
Godefroid intentionally assumed