As he spoke, Sans-Cravate turned and looked at his comrades. He shrugged his shoulders when he saw Jean Ficelle playing with his cards, and muttered: "The deuce! there's Jean Ficelle practising his tricks! Cards are his vocation. But damn me if I ever play piquet with you again! Infernal Ficelle![A] you are too well named." The person addressed paid no attention, he was so engrossed by his cards. Thereupon Sans-Cravate turned to Paul and said, with a smile: "Ah! this is a bird of another color. 'Tis love, love, love, that makes the world go round! And here's a young spark as has laid in a good stock of it. Well, Paul, even if you give yourself a stiff neck standing like that, with your head in the air, you won't succeed in opening the windows on the fourth floor, if Mademoiselle Dumanchon, the dressmaker, wants 'em to stay shut. Mademoiselle Dumanchon don't let her girls go out to walk the streets; indeed, she has plenty of work, because, they say, she knows her business. She makes dresses that give a bust to women without any, and that hide the hips of those who have too much. That's genuine talent! I am surprised that she lives on the fourth floor; to be sure, lodgings in this quarter are pretty high.--Come, Paul, tell me, haven't you seen your little girl to-day?" The young messenger who was looking in the air turned to Sans-Cravate and replied: "My little girl? What do you mean? I don't understand you." "Oh, well! if we're going to play the stupid, if we have secrets from our friends--that's a different matter, and you'd better say so. Do you suppose I don't know that you're in love with one of the dressmaker's apprentices, a pretty little thing named Elina, who takes short, quick steps when she passes us, which doesn't prevent her casting a sly glance in your direction?" "Really, Sans-Cravate! do you think she looks at me when she passes?" "You don't see her yourself, I suppose, you fox?" "Oh! I assure you, Sans-Cravate, that I have never said a word to that young woman which could make her suspect that I dare to think of her. I think her very pretty, that is true; and then, she is so pleasant and so courteous when she gives me an errand to do! There are so many people who treat us messengers as if we were brutes or savages!" "When anybody takes that tone with me, I pay him back in his own coin. If people are decent, I am amiable; if they're insolent, then I'm brutal! and be damned to 'em!" "But when one is obliged to work for his living, he must work for everybody." "Not at all! I choose my patrons. Indeed, I very often fold my arms." "Several times Mademoiselle Elina has taken me with her to carry boxes, and she always talks to me so kindly---- Ah! it makes me forget that I am only a poor messenger." "In short, you are in love with the girl; that's the whole story."