did not keep
good company--when I tell you he was very near being nabbed by the
police in a tavern where thieves meet. 'Wever, Monsieur Braulard, the
leader of the claque, got him out of that. He wears gold earrings, and
he lives by doing nothing, hanging on to women, who are fools about
these good-looking scamps. He spent all the money Monsieur Thoul used to
give the child.

"Then the business was going to grief; what embroidery brought in went
out across the billiard table. 'Wever, the young fellow had a pretty
sister, madame, who, like her brother, lived by hook and by crook, and
no better than she should be neither, over in the students' quarter."

"One of the sluts at the Chaumiere," said Josepha.

"So, madame," said the old woman. "So Idamore, his name is Idamore,
leastways that is what he calls himself, for his real name is
Chardin--Idamore fancied that your uncle had a deal more money than he
owned to, and he managed to send his sister Elodie--and that was a stage
name he gave her--to send her to be a workwoman at our place, without
my daughter's knowing who she was; and, gracious goodness! but that girl
turned the whole place topsy-turvy; she got all those poor girls into
mischief--impossible to whitewash them, saving your presence----

"And she was so sharp, she won over poor old Thoul, and took him away,
and we don't know where, and left us in a pretty fix, with a lot of
bills coming in. To this day as ever is we have not been able to settle
up; but my daughter, who knows all about such things, keeps an eye on
them as they fall due.--Then, when Idamore saw he had got hold of the
old man, through his sister, you understand, he threw over my daughter,
and now he has got hold of a little actress at the _Funambules_.--And
that was how my daughter came to get married, as you will see--"

"But you must know where the mattress-picker lives?" said Josepha.

"What! old Chardin? As if he lived anywhere at all!--He is drunk by six
in the morning; he makes a mattress once a month; he hangs about the
wineshops all day; he plays at pools--"

"He plays at pools?" said Josepha.

"You do not understand, madame, pools of billiards, I mean, and he wins
three or four a day, and then he drinks."

"Water out of the pools, I suppose?" said Josepha. "But if Idamore
haunts the Boulevard, by inquiring through my friend Vraulard, we could
find him."

"I don't know, madame; all this was six months ago. Idamore was one of
the