"Monsieur le valet de chambre, you are a donkey! You talk nothing but nonsense!" "What's that? I am a donkey! Allow me----" "I don't doubt that your master receives many ladies, and for that very reason I don't propose to add to the number." "But----" "Enough of this! You have my answer; go and repeat it to Monsieur de Mardeille." Frontin was on the point of making some retort, when a great uproar in the courtyard attracted the attention of all the tenants of the house. X A BOX OF CANDIED FRUIT The reader will remember that Monsieur Renardin, one of Georgette's neighbors, who had a maid of all work, had purchased a box of candied fruit and had employed a little bootblack to deliver it to Georgette, and had told him that she lived on the entresol at the rear of the courtyard. But the young fellow, who was a messenger as well as a bootblack, was a child of Auvergne, and had just as much intelligence as he required to black boots or to carry a pail of water; almost all water carriers are Auvergnats. He put the box of candied fruit under his arm; it was carefully wrapped in white paper and tied with pink ribbon. He entered the designated house, and, passing the concierge's door with his head in the air, started across the courtyard; but the concierge, who had seen him pass, ran out of his lodge and stopped him, saying: "Where in the devil are you going, you young scamp? What do you mean by marching by my door without a word? That's no way to go into a house, do you hear, Savoyard?" "I ain't no Savoyard, I'm an Auvergnat." "Savoyard or Auvergnat! I don't care which, they're the same thing! Where are you going, I say?" "I'm not speaking to you! I'm going straight ahead." "I see that you don't speak to me; but I speak to you; I'm the concierge, and I have a right to question you, and you must answer." "I'm not to speak to the concierge, that's my orders. I'm going straight ahead." "What an obstinate little beggar! I tell you, you shan't pass till I know where you're going!" "But I tell you I'm going straight ahead to take this box." "Where?" "I won't tell you." "I'll make you tell me! What's in the box? explosive stuff, perhaps? If you won't answer, I'll take you and your box before the magistrate." The concierge seized the boy's arm; he struggled and wept, and shouted at the top of his lungs: "Let me be--you big thief! Monsieur Renardin, your neighbor, sent me here, and I'll tell him that you wouldn't let me do my errand!" Mademoiselle Arthémise, the old bachelor's servant, crossed the courtyard at that moment. Hearing her master's name, she stopped short, then ran to the messenger. "Monsieur Renardin!" she cried; "who wants Monsieur Renardin? This little fellow?--What do you want of him?" "Why, no, he doesn't want him; he says that he comes here from him," said the concierge; "if the little donkey had only said that at first, I'd have let him pass."