Madame is probably accustomed to use a carriage.”

“That would suit you better than me, my dear, and would save your having to buy shoes to keep your feet off the ground!”

The crowd seemed inclined to hustle the speaker,—­

“Wait a moment!” she continued, “I didn’t mean to offend anyone.  I am a poor woman, but there’s no disgrace in that, and I can afford a glass of liqueur.  Eh, good gossip, you understand, don’t you?  A drop of the best for Mother Maniffret, and if my fine friend there will drink with me to settle our difference, I will stand her a glass.”

The example set by the old hawker was contagious, and instead of filling two little glasses only, widow Masson dispensed a bottleful.

“Come, you have done well,” cried Mother Maniffret; “my idea has brought you luck.”

“Faith! not before it was wanted, either!”

“What! are you complaining of trade too?”

“Ah! don’t mention it; it is miserable!”

“There’s no trade at all.  I scream myself hoarse all day, and choke myself for twopence halfpenny.  I don’t know what’s to come of it all.  But you seem to have a nice little custom.”

“What’s the good of that, with a whole house on one’s hands?  It’s just my luck; the old tenants go, and the new ones don’t come.”

“What’s the matter, then?”

“I think the devil’s in it.  There was a nice man on the first floor-gone; a decent family on the third, all right except that the man beat his wife every night, and made such a row that no one could sleep—­gone also.  I put up notices—­no one even looks at them!  A few months ago—­it was the middle of December, the day of the last execution—­”

“The 15th, then,” said the hawker.  “I cried it, so I know; it’s my trade, that.”

“Very well, then, the 15th,” resumed widow Masson.  “On that day, then, I let the cellar to a man who said he was a wine merchant, and who paid a term in advance, seeing that I didn’t know him, and wouldn’t have lent him a farthing on the strength of his good looks.  He was a little bit of a man, no taller than that,”—­contemptuously holding out her hand,—­“and he had two round eyes which I didn’t like at, all.  He certainly paid, he did that, but we are more than half through the second term and I have no news of my tenant.”

“And have you never seen him since?”

“Yes, once—­no, twice.  Let’s see—­three times, I am sure.  He came with a hand-cart and a commissionaire, and had a big chest taken downstairs—­a case which he said contained wine in bottles....

“No, he came before that, with a workman I think.

“Really, I don’t know if it was before or after—­doesn’t matter.  Anyhow, it was bottled wine.  The third time he brought a mason, and I am sure they quarreled.  I heard their voices.  He carried off the key, and I have seen neither him nor his wine again.  I have another key, and I went down one day; perhaps the rats have drunk the wine and eaten the chest, for there certainly is nothing there any more than there is in my hand now.  Nevertheless, I saw what I saw.  A big chest, very big, quite new, and corded all round with strong rope.”