Godefroid then saw a cup of excellent _cafe au lait_ with a smoking omelet, fresh butter, and little red radishes. “Where the devil did you get those radishes?” he asked. “They were given me by Monsieur Cartier,” answered Madame Vauthier; “and I make a present of them to monsieur.” “And what are you going to ask me for such a breakfast daily?” “Well now, monsieur, be fair,--I couldn’t do it for less than thirty sous.” “Very good, thirty sous then;” said Godefroid; “but how is it that they ask me only forty-five francs a month for dinner, close by here at Machillot’s? That is the same price you ask me for breakfast.” “But what a difference, monsieur, between preparing a dinner for fifteen or twenty persons and going out to get you just what you want for breakfast! See here! there’s a roll, eggs, butter, the cost of lighting a fire, sugar, milk, coffee!--just think! they ask you sixteen sous for a cup of coffee alone on the place de l’Odeon, and then you have to give a sou or two to the waiter. Here you have no trouble; you can breakfast in slippers.” “Very well, very well,” said Godefroid. “Without Madame Cartier who supplies me with milk and eggs and herbs I couldn’t manage it. You ought to go and see their establishment, monsieur. Ha! it’s fine! They employ five journeymen gardeners, and Nepomucene goes there in summer to draw water for them; they hire him of me as a waterer. They make lots of money out of melons and strawberries. It seems monsieur takes quite an interest in Monsieur Bernard,” continued the widow in dulcet tones; “or he wouldn’t be responsible for his debts. Perhaps he doesn’t know all that family owes. There’s the lady who keeps the circulating library on the place Saint-Michel; she is always coming here after thirty francs they owe her,--and she needs it, God knows! That sick woman in there, she reads, reads, reads! Two sous a volume makes thirty francs in three months.” “That means a hundred volumes a month,” said Godefroid. “Ah! there’s the old man going now to fetch a roll and cream for his daughter’s tea,--yes, tea! she lives on tea, that lady. She drinks it twice a day. And twice a week she has to have sweet things. Oh! she’s dainty! The old man buys cakes and pates from the pastry cook in the rue de Buci. He don’t care what he spends, if it’s for her. He calls her his daughter! It ain’t often that men of his age do for a daughter what he does for her! He just kills himself, he and Auguste too, for that woman. Monsieur is just like me; I’d give anything to see her. Monsieur Berton says she’s a monster,--something like those they show for money. That’s the reason they’ve come to live here, in this lonely quarter. Well, so monsieur thinks of dining at Madame Machillot’s, does he?” “Yes, I think of making an arrangement there.”