"Good! what else do you want?" "Three iron bars, three to four feet long, and two inches square." "I tore down the other day some grating from a window; that will suit you like a glove. What next?" "Two strong hinges and a latch; to fix and shut at will, a wicket two feet square." "A trap, you mean to say?" "No; a wicket." "I cannot comprehend what you can want with it?" "That is possible, but I can." "Very well, you have only to choose; there are the hinges. What else do you need?" "That's all." "It is not much." "Get my goods ready at once, Daddy Micou, I will take them as I pass; I have some more errands to do." "With your cart? I say, I saw a bale of goods in the bottom; is it something more that you have taken from everybody's cupboard, little glutton?" "As you say, Daddy Micou: but you don't eat this; don't make me wait for my iron, for I must be back to the island by twelve o'clock." "Don't be uneasy, it is eight o'clock; if you are not going far, in an hour you can return, all will be ready, Will you take a drop?" "To be sure; you can well afford to pay it!" Daddy Micou took out of an old chest a bottle of brandy, a cracked glass, a cup without a handle, and poured out the liquor. "Your health, old 'un!" "Yours, my boy, and the ladies' at home!" "Thank you; and your lodgings come on well?" "So, so. I have always some lodgers for whom I fear the visits of the grabs; but they pay more in consequence." "Why?" "How stupid you are! Sometimes I lodge as I buy; to such I no more ask for their passports than I ask you for an invoice." "Understood! but to those you let as dear as you buy of me cheap." "Must take care of one's self. I have a cousin who keeps a fine hotel in the Rue Saint Honore, while his wife is a mantua-maker, who employs as many as twenty assistants, either at her shop, or at their own homes." "Say now, old obstinacy, there must be some pretty ones there?" "I guess so! there are two or three that I have seen sometimes bringing in their work. Crimini! ain't they nice! One little puss, who works at home, always laughing, called Rigolette. Oh, my lark! what a pity I ain't twenty!" "Come, come, papa, put yourself out, or I'll cry fire!" "But she is virtuous, my boy; she is virtuous." "Get out! and you say that your cousin--" "Keeps a very good house, and, as she is of the same number as little Rigolette--" "Virtuous?" "Exactly." "Over!" "She will not have lodgers without passports or papers; but if any present themselves, knowing I am not very particular, she sends them to me." "And they pay in consequence?" "Always." "But are they all friends of the family, those who have no papers?" "No. Ah, now, speaking of that, my cousin sent me, a few days ago, a customer. May the devil burn me, if I can understand it! Come, another turn?" "Agreed; the liquor is good. Your health, Micou!"