I tried another method. Sometimes young men dread a woman's visit, especially when they have another woman with them. I coughed in several keys, and in a moment the door opened a little way and Balloquet's nose appeared. When he spied me, he threw the door wide open, crying: "Why, it's my dear Rochebrune! Come in, my dear fellow, come in! That was a good idea of yours, to cough. I was apprehensive of other visits." "A doctor doesn't ordinarily fear them." "That depends on what kind they are." "Perhaps you have company, and I disturb you?" "Not at all. I am alone. Come in." I passed through a very small room, in which I did not see a single piece of furniture, into a large bedroom with an iron bed, a desk, chairs, two trunks, and a small book-case. Clothes and toilet articles were scattered about on all the furniture and in every corner. If picturesque disorder is the result of an artistic temperament, it is impossible to be more artistic than Balloquet, who offered me a chair, saying, as he removed the dressing gown in which he was wrapped: "I'll go back to bed, with your permission?" "Certainly; but you lie in bed very late; are you ill?" "Not now; but I've had a hard time." "You are changed, that is true. Where is your fine coloring, and the fresh complexion that procured you so many soft glances?" "Oh! as to my fresh complexion, I have lost that entirely; but it will come back. It's infernally cold here!" "That is true." "Come nearer the fireplace." "I haven't the slightest objection, but how will that help me? There's no fire." "No fire! Gad! that's so. I remember now that I didn't find a single stick this morning in that trunk that I use as a woodbox; indeed, that's why I stayed in bed, because it was warmer here. Will you get into bed with me, without ceremony?" "No, thanks; I prefer to be cold. But, tell me, Balloquet, what in the deuce has happened to you since I saw you last? Then you had a very pretty little suite of rooms, handsomely furnished; you had everything you wanted, and a fellow didn't freeze in your room; and to-day you are perched on a sixth floor, in a single room; for I don't see any other than the one I entered, and this is evidently the whole apartment." "Yes; but how beautifully it's decorated, eh? Fresh paint, and this wall paper, and that ceiling with a centre-piece!" "Yes, yes, it's all fresh and new; for all that, I should think that you'd need some furniture." "Do you think so? For my part, when an apartment has pretty wall paper and fresh paint, it seems to me that very little furniture is required." "Very little, possibly, but some; and I didn't see a single piece in the outer room." "Furniture would make it look smaller, and it's none too large." I began to laugh, and Balloquet followed suit, rolling himself up in the bedclothes. "My dear Rochebrune," he continued, "I will conceal the truth from you no longer: you see before you a man who is completely _strapped_--yes, completely!"