“Fancy they’re brutes enough to shout things to you in broad daylight!” she continued.  “When one’s out on business one ought to be respectfully treated, eh?”

Nana had ended by buying her pigeons, although she certainly had her doubts of their freshness.  After which Satin wanted to show her where she lived in the Rue Rochefoucauld close by.  And the moment they were alone Nana told her of her passion for Fontan.  Arrived in front of the house, the girl stopped with her bundle of radishes under her arm and listened eagerly to a final detail which the other imparted to her.  Nana fibbed away and vowed that it was she who had turned Count Muffat out of doors with a perfect hail of kicks on the posterior.

“Oh how smart!” Satin repeated.  “How very smart!  Kicks, eh?  And he never said a word, did he?  What a blooming coward!  I wish I’d been there to see his ugly mug!  My dear girl, you were quite right.  A pin for the coin!  When I’m on with a mash I starve for it!  You’ll come and see me, eh?  You promise?  It’s the left-hand door.  Knock three knocks, for there’s a whole heap of damned squints about.”

After that whenever Nana grew too weary of life she went down and saw Satin.  She was always sure of finding her, for the girl never went out before six in the evening.  Satin occupied a couple of rooms which a chemist had furnished for her in order to save her from the clutches of the police, but in little more than a twelvemonth she had broken the furniture, knocked in the chairs, dirtied the curtains, and that in a manner so furiously filthy and untidy that the lodgings seemed as though inhabited by a pack of mad cats.  On the mornings when she grew disgusted with herself and thought about cleaning up a bit, chair rails and strips of curtain would come off in her hands during her struggle with superincumbent dirt.  On such days the place was fouler than ever, and it was impossible to enter it, owing to the things which had fallen down across the doorway.  At length she ended by leaving her house severely alone.  When the lamp was lit the cupboard with plate-glass doors, the clock and what remained of the curtains still served to impose on the men.  Besides, for six months past her landlord had been threatening to evict her.  Well then, for whom should she be keeping the furniture nice?  For him more than anyone else, perhaps!  And so whenever she got up in a merry mood she would shout “Gee up!” and give the sides of the cupboard and the chest of drawers such a tremendous kick that they cracked again.

Nana nearly always found her in bed.  Even on the days when Satin went out to do her marketing she felt so tired on her return upstairs that she flung herself down on the bed and went to sleep again.  During the day she dragged herself about and dozed off on chairs.  Indeed, she did not emerge from this languid condition till the evening drew on and the gas was lit outside.  Nana felt very comfortable