his landlady's yellow salon after dinner without remarking
that there was no house in Tours where he could get such good coffee as
that he had just imbibed.

Thanks to this thorough understanding of Mademoiselle Gamard's
character, and to the science of existence which he had put in practice
for the last twelve years, no matter of discussion on the internal
arrangements of the household had ever come up between them. The Abbe
Chapeloud had taken note of the spinster's angles, asperities, and
crabbedness, and had so arranged his avoidance of her that he obtained
without the least difficulty all the concessions that were necessary
to the happiness and tranquility of his life. The result was that
Mademoiselle Gamard frequently remarked to her friends and acquaintances
that the Abbe Chapeloud was a very amiable man, extremely easy to live
with, and a fine mind.

As to her other lodger, the Abbe Troubert, she said absolutely nothing
about him. Completely involved in the round of her life, like a
satellite in the orbit of a planet, Troubert was to her a sort of
intermediary creature between the individuals of the human species
and those of the canine species; he was classed in her heart next, but
directly before, the place intended for friends but now occupied by
a fat and wheezy pug which she tenderly loved. She ruled Troubert
completely, and the intermingling of their interests was so obvious that
many persons of her social sphere believed that the Abbe Troubert had
designs on the old maid's property, and was binding her to him unawares
with infinite patience, and really directing her while he seemed to be
obeying without ever letting her perceive in him the slightest wish on
his part to govern her.

When the Abbe Chapeloud died, the old maid, who desired a lodger with
quiet ways, naturally thought of the vicar. Before the canon's will was
made known she had meditated offering his rooms to the Abbe Troubert,
who was not very comfortable on the ground-floor. But when the Abbe
Birotteau, on receiving his legacy, came to settle in writing the terms
of his board she saw he was so in love with the apartment, for which he
might now admit his long cherished desires, that she dared not propose
the exchange, and accordingly sacrificed her sentiments of friendship to
the demands of self-interest. But in order to console her beloved canon,
Mademoiselle took up the large white Chateau-Renaud bricks that made
the floors of his apartm