“Oh! so-so.--A saucy face, and a bold way--like a cuirassier! She’s already been the means of setting more than twelve people by the ears, and only a little while ago, on the town holiday, she waltzed with the drum-major, who quarrelled with a sapper because she’d made an appointment with the sapper to take a walk in the labyrinth. That would have been a serious matter, if Monsieur Jolicœur hadn’t turned up! But he’s good-natured; he made peace between the drum-major and the sapper, swearing to the latter that his wife didn’t intend to break her word to him, and that it was pure forgetfulness on her part.” “That husband knows how to live.--Let’s go on. Cunégonde-Aline Trouillard, forty-four years old and keeps a very popular café.” “Ah! that’s the lemonade woman! She’s always having the vapors and sick headaches and--in short, she always thinks she’s sick and passes her time taking medicine instead of staying at her desk.” “She must be a very valuable woman to the druggists!” “Her husband tries to be smart, to play the chemist; he makes coffee out of asparagus seed and sugar out of turnips. I’m sure that he’ll come to consult you too.” I continued to make memoranda of Clairette’s answers, and we had almost exhausted the list, when there was a knock at our door. I answered the knock; it was our landlord, who had come to inform us that the mayor wished to see us, and that he expected us at his office. We could not decline that invitation. My companion donned his best coat and lent me a pair of black silk knee-breeches that reached to my heels, the little hunchback having purchased them at secondhand from a great poet, who had them from an actor at one of the boulevard theatres, who had them from a member of the Academy who was paying court to a ballet dancer, at whose rooms he had left them. We started, somewhat disturbed concerning the results of our visit. However, my companion, who was very quick-witted, hoped to find a way out of the dilemma. We arrived at the mayor’s abode and were ushered into his study. We saw a short, lean man, whose eyes sparkled with intelligence and animation. From the first questions that he asked us, my companion saw that he had to do with a redoubtable party. The mayor was a scholar; he was thoroughly acquainted with several abstract sciences, among others, medicine, chemistry, botany and astronomy. In his presence, my poor little hunchback lost his loquacity and his presumption. The mayor, perceiving our embarrassment, chose to put an end to it.