"Oh! you can sit down a minute, you know you can," said Adele, when she brought her the absinthe and the butter. "I never see you now, you'll never come in. Come! you have plenty of time to be with your old woman. For my part, I couldn't live with an Antichrist's face like hers! So stay. This is the house without work to-day. There isn't a sou--madame's abed. Whenever there's no money, she goes to bed, does madame; she stays in bed all day, reading novels. Have some of this?"--And she offered her her glass of absinthe.--"No? oh! no, you don't drink. You're very foolish. It's a funny thing not to drink. Say, it would be very nice of you to write me a little line for my dearie. Hard work, you know. I have told you about it. See, here's madame's pen--and her paper--it smells good. Are you ready? He's a good fellow, my dear, and no mistake! He's in the butcher line as I told you. Ah! my word! I mustn't rub him the wrong way! When he's had a glass of blood after killing his beasts, he's like a madman--and if you're obstinate with him--Dame! why then he thumps you! But what would you have? He does that to make him strong. If you could see him thump himself on the breast--blows that would kill an ox, and say: 'That's a wall, that is!' Ah! he's a gentleman, I tell you! Are you thinking about the letter, eh? Make it one of the fetching kind. Say nice things to him, you know--and a little sad--he adores that. At the theatre he doesn't like anything that doesn't make him cry. Look here! Imagine that you're writing to a lover of your own." Germinie began to write. "Say, Germinie! Have you heard? Madame's taken a strange idea into her head. It's a funny thing about women like her, who can hold their heads up with the greatest of 'em, who can have everything, hobnob with kings if they choose! And there's nothing to be said--when one is like madame, you know, when one has such a body as that! And then the way they load themselves down with finery, with their tralala of dresses and lace everywhere and everything else--how do you suppose anyone can resist them? And if it isn't a gentleman, if it's someone like us--you can see how much more all that will catch him; a woman in velvet goes to his brain. Yes, my dear, just fancy, here's madame gone daft on that _gamin_ of a Jupillon! That's all we needed to make us die of hunger here!" Germinie, with her pen in the air over the letter she had begun, looked up at Adele, devouring her with her eyes.