It was an old house where Caffie lived, and had been formerly a private hotel; it was composed of two wings, one on the street, the other on an inside court.  A porte cochere gave access to this court, and under its roof, near the staircase, was the concierge’s lodge.  Saniel knocked at the door in vain; it was locked and would not open.  He waited several minutes, and in his nervous impatience walked restlessly up and down the court.  At last an old woman appeared carrying a small wax taper.  She was feeble and bent, and began to excuse herself; she was alone and could not be everywhere at the same time, in her lodge and lighting the lamps on the stairways.  Caffie lived on the first floor, in the wing on the street.

Saniel mounted the stairs and rang the bell.  A long time passed, or at least it seemed long to him, before there was an answer.  At last he heard a slow and heavy step on the tiled floor and the door was opened, but held by a hand and a foot.

“What do you wish?”

“Monsieur Caffie.”

“I am he.  Who are you?”

“Doctor Saniel.”

“I have not sent for a doctor.”

“It is not as doctor that I am here, but as client.”

“This is not the hour when I receive clients.”

“But you are at home.”

“That is a fact!”

And Caffie, concluding to open the door, asked Saniel to enter, and then closed it.

“Come into my office.”

They were in a small room filled with papers that had only an old desk and three chairs for furniture; it communicated with the office of the business man, which was larger, but furnished with the same simplicity and strewn with scraps of paper that had a mouldy smell.

“My clerk is ill just now,” Caffie said, “and when I am alone I do not like to open the door.”

After giving this excuse he offered Saniel a chair, and, seating himself before his desk, lighted by a lamp from which he had taken the shade, he said: 

“Doctor, I am ready to listen to you.”

He replaced the shade on the lamp.

Saniel made his request concisely, without the details that he had entered into with Glady.  He owed three thousand francs to the upholsterer who had furnished his apartment, and as he could not pay immediately he was in danger of being prosecuted.

“Who is the upholsterer?” Caffie asked, while holding his left jaw with his right hand.

“Jardine, Boulevard Haussmann.”

“I know him.  It is his trade to take back his furniture in this way, after three quarters of the sum has been paid, and he has become rich at it.  How much money have you already paid of this ten thousand francs?”

“Including the interest and what I have paid in instalments, nearly twelve thousand francs.”

“And you still owe three thousand?”

“Yes.”

“That is nice.”

Caffie seemed full of admiration for this manner of proceeding.