"Lord bless me, what a memory I have! I quite forgot to name to you that I have spoken to the person, and he says he has no manner of objections to turn out provided you give him 1000 francs as a recompense." "The fellow must be mad! why, he scarcely pays 400 francs a-year for his lodging." "I fought very hard with him; but I could not make him give way the least in the world!" "Why, it is regularly picking my pocket!" "So it is; but there is no help for it; you will have to give him what he asks, and he will quit immediately: in four-and-twenty hours he will be out of the house, bag and baggage." "Well, here then! here is a bank-note for 1000 francs, and another for 500 francs; you will pay six months in advance, and account to me for the rest." "Ah, sir, you will find yourself ever so much more quiet and comfortable when you have all the house to yourself. As for me, I shall not feel a bit more timid, although we have got no porter;--but la! I never dreaded thieves, no, nor ghosts either, for that matter." "And, besides, though this neighbourhood is somewhat lonely, it is a very safe one." "And there is the soldier on duty, at the corner of the street, who can watch our house as he sits in his sentry-box." "Now, then, my good Madame Grassot, make quick work with your second-floor lodger, pack him off as soon as possible. I long to have the place all to myself." "By the day after to-morrow, I pledge myself you shall find no one here. Well, good luck to us all! I know whom I should like to see occupy this house as soon as the second-floor lodger has left. But I know, monsieur, and I feel sure it will be as I wish some of these days; without my reminding him, when once monsieur determines to do a thing handsome, he never forgets, never----" "You are a regular flatterer, Madame Grassot," cried M. de Brévannes, as he complacently smiled upon his emissary, and quitted the small dwelling in the Rue des Martyrs. After having awaited the following evening with much impatience he arrived about eight o'clock on the Quai d'Anjou; it was a fine clear winter's night; the cold was sharp and biting, and the moon shone out in all the brilliancy of a frosty sky. After awaiting some little time, the little door opened, and Iris, closely muffled up, appeared at its entrance. M. de Brévannes had left his vehicle at some little distance, he therefore hastened towards the young mulatto, who, trembling violently, took his arm. CHAPTER XXI THE INTERVIEW "In the first place," said M. de Brévannes, endeavouring to slip a purse of gold into the hand of the mulatto, "take this, my good girl, for your own trouble." Iris, however, indignantly rejected the propitiatory offering, saying, in a tone of offended pride, "You are evidently under some mistake, monsieur." "Nay," said M. de Brévannes, trying to force it upon her acceptance, "nay, accept it as a feeble mark of my esteem."