“A poodle dog,” cried I eagerly, “with his coat unclipped,—­a rough brown dog?”

“Yes, exactly.  Ah, you know Noemi,—­bien sur!” And she leered at me, and laughed again unpleasantly.

“I never saw her in my life,” said I hotly; “but her dog has come astray to my lodgings, and he had a piece of this ribbon of yours round his throat; nothing more than that.”

“Ah?  Well, she lives at number ten.  Tenez,—­there’s Maman Paquet the other side of the street; you’d better go and speak to her.”

She pointed to a hideous old harridan standing on the opposite pavement, her bare arms resting on her hips, and a greasy yellow kerchief twisted turban-wise round her head.  My heart sank.  Noemi must be very poor, or very unfortunate, to live under the same roof with such an old sorciere!  Nevertheless, I crossed the street, and accosted the hag with a smile.

“Good-day, Maman Paquet.  Can you tell me anything of your lodger, Noemi Bergeron?”

“Hein?” She was deaf and surly.  I repeated my question in a louder key.  “I know nothing of her,” she answered, in a voice that sounded like the croak of a frog.  “She couldn’t pay me her rent, and I told her to be off.  Maybe she’s drowned by this.”

“You turned her out?” I cried.

“Yes, turned her out,” repeated the hag, with a savage oath.  “It was her own fault; she might have sold her beast of a poodle to pay me, and she wouldn’t.  Why not, I should like to know,—­she sold everything else she had!”

“And you can tell me nothing about her now,—­you know no more than that?”

“Nothing.  Go and find her!” She muttered a curse, glared at me viciously, and hobbled off.  I had turned to depart in another direction, when a skinny hand suddenly clutched my arm, and looking round, I found that Maman Paquet had followed and overtaken me.  “You know the girl,” she squeaked, eyeing me greedily,—­“will you pay her rent?  She owed me a month’s lodging, seven francs.”

She looked so loathsome and horrible with her withered evil face so close to mine that I gave a gesture of disgust and shook her off as though she had been a toad.

“No,” said I, quickening my steps; “she is a stranger to me, and my pockets are empty.”

Maman Paquet flung a curse after me, more foul and emphatic than the last, and went her way blaspheming.

I returned home to Pepin saddened and disquieted.  “So, after all,” I said to him, “your owner belongs to the fair sex!  But, heaven! in what misery she and you must have lived!  And yet you cried for her, Pepin!”