The Englishman whose sitting room Schaunard now entered, had suffered with patience for three months. One day he concealed his fury, which was ready to explode, under a full dress suit and sent in his card to Mademoiselle Dolores. When she beheld him enter, arrayed almost as he would have been to present himself before Queen Victoria, she at first thought it must be Hoffmann, in his part of Lord Spleen; and wishing to be civil to a fellow artist, she offered him some breakfast. The Englishman understood French. He had learned it in twenty five lessons from a Spanish refugee. Accordingly he replied: "I accept your invitation on condition of our eating this disagreeable bird," and he pointed to the cage of the parrot, who, having smelled an Englishman, saluted him by whistling "God Save the King." Dolores thought her neighbor was quizzing her, and was beginning to get angry, when Mr. Birne added: "As I am very rich, I will buy the animal. Put your price on it." Dolores answered that she valued the bird, and liked it, and would not wish to see it pass into the hands of another. "Oh, it's not in my hands I want to put it," replied the Englishman, "But under my feet--so--," and he pointed to the heels of his boots. Dolores shuddered with indignation and would probably have broken out, when she perceived on the Englishman's finger a ring, the diamond of which represented an income of twenty five hundred francs. The discovery was like a shower bath to her rage. She reflected that it might be imprudent to quarrel with a man who carried fifty thousand francs on his little finger. "Well, sir," she said, "as poor Coco annoys you, I will put him in a back room, where you cannot hear him." The Englishman made a gesture of satisfaction. "However," added he, pointing once more to his boots, "I should have preferred--." "Don't be afraid. Where I mean to put him it will be impossible for him to trouble milord." "Oh! I am not a lord; only an esquire." With that, Mr. Birne was retiring, after a very low bow, when Delores, who never neglected her interests, took up a small pocket from a work table and said: "Tonight sir, is my benefit at the theater. I am to play in three pieces. Will you allow me to offer you some box tickets? The price has been but very slightly raised." And she put a dozen boxes into the Briton's hand. "After showing myself so prompt to oblige him," thought she, "he cannot refuse, if he is a gentleman, and if he sees me play in my pink costume, who knows? He is very ugly, to be sure, and very sad looking, but he might furnish me the means of going to England without being sea sick." The Englishman having taken the tickets, had their purport explained to him a second time. He then asked the price.