“Well, my word! there’s customers for you! They come here and handle and move your flowers and spoil them, and then go away without buying anything.” “Dear me, Monsieur Georget, that’s the way it is in business; one can’t always sell.” “But the young man would have liked to stay, I fancy. What eyes he made at you, zigzag! A man shouldn’t be allowed to squint like that! I am sure it would exempt him from the conscription; for when a man looks all ways at once, he can hardly fire straight at the enemy.--But no matter, you have turned his head.” “Mon Dieu! to hear you, Georget, one would think that everybody is in love with me!” “Well, it seems to me that you don’t lack suitors and gallants. There are days when a fellow can’t get near your shop, there are so many people around you!” “I have no reason to complain, that is true. I sell a great deal. My bouquets seem to please.” “Oh! your bouquets--and yourself too. When the dealer is good-looking, that makes business good; and deuce take it! you are mighty good-looking.” “You know very well, Georget, that nothing tires me so much as compliments!” “Then you must get tired very often! you receive them all day!” “I can’t prevent the gentlemen who buy flowers of me from talking nonsense to me! but it seems to me that you might get along without it.” “So what I say to you is nonsense, is it?” “Instead of idling away your time every market day, walking back and forth in front of my stand, wouldn’t you do better to work?” “Do you mean that you don’t like to have me stop in front of your shop sometimes, mamzelle?” “I don’t say that, but I ask you if you would not do better to work.” “All right, mamzelle, that’s enough. I won’t stand near you any more, never fear! If you don’t like it, why, I----” “Oh! how wrong-headed you are, Monsieur Georget! a body can’t give you a little advice, eh?” But the young messenger was no longer listening to the pretty flower girl; he walked away with a very pronounced frown, and sat down upon one of the steps of the Château d’Eau. He had hardly settled down when another youngster of nineteen, tall, strong and active, with his cap cocked over one ear in true roistering fashion, came and stood in front of him, crying: “Ah! here’s Georget! here’s my little Georget! I am glad of that; I thought he must have been swallowed by the whale on exhibition over yonder, behind us. To be sure, I know that it isn’t alive; but never mind, you might have crawled into its mouth. I say, Georget, have you seen the whale?” “Let me alone, I don’t feel like talking!”