"The lorette gives evening parties, where there are always many men and very few women. All games are played there, from lotto to lansquenet. These ladies are passionately fond of gambling; but when they take their places beside a green cloth, they tell you frankly that they propose to win; it is for you to take your measures accordingly. One day, at a game of lansquenet, the banker being a pretty lorette, someone discovered that she was cheating, and she was charged with it; far from denying the charge, she began to laugh, and retorted: 'Mon Dieu! what does it matter whether I take your money this way or some other way?' "The lorette knows nothing but money; don't continue to show yourself in her presence when your purse is empty, for her love will surely have followed your cash. She is not the woman to pawn her clothes in order to have a jollification with you. "The lorette has handsome furniture, but she doesn't pay for it, any more than she pays her rent. If you take her to dine at a restaurant, she will begin by playing the prude. She will declare that she isn't hungry; she doesn't like this or that; one thing makes her sick, another is abhorrent to her. But in the end she gets tipsy and has indigestion. "The proper method, in my opinion at least, is to take a lorette for a day, a grisette for a month, and a fillette for life, when you meet one who has found time during the day to dress herself and arrange her hair, to do her housework, eat her breakfast, watch her soup kettle, and tie her shoestrings; for then you will have discovered a phoenix, or the eighth wonder of the world. "To sum up, the fillette craves sentiment, the grisette pleasure, the lorette money. "I venture to hope, messieurs, that you will accept this superficial study of women instead of a _bonne fortune_; especially as it is a very long while since fortune has been kind [_bonne_] to me; and, unluckily, I have had no leisure to think of love making, so that I could tell you nothing worthy of a hearing after all that I have had the pleasure of listening to." VI MONSIEUR FOUVENARD'S _BONNE FORTUNE_.--THE GINGERBREAD WOMAN Everybody had listened with pleasure to Monsieur Dumouton's study of womankind. Only Monsieur Faisandé, without a word, left his seat and disappeared while the author was talking. The disappearance of the Treasury clerk did not grieve us overmuch, nor did it interfere with our drinking and laughing and saying whatever came into our heads. But as Balloquet seemed to possess some private information concerning that modest personage, I determined to question him on the subject; for I was anxious to know whether I was mistaken in my conjectures, and whether I owed Monsieur Faisandé an apology for the evil thoughts of him that had come to my mind.