"It is easy to see, Madelaine, that you are no better acquainted with the Marquis than with the Grand Turk. . . . He, a knave; he, a sharper; he--poor young man--so mild, so gentle, so sad, and then so pretty . . . one could spend an hour only in looking at him . . . he is like a wax saint." "So pretty--so pretty," said the housewife, imitating her husband, ". . . and what does that amount to? Did any one ever see such folly? Does he pay us any better because he is pretty? Once more, what good has it done you?" "This is what it does for me: when I see such a handsome gentleman, poor and unhappy . . . I am heart-broken, and I have not the courage to ask for my money. . . . That is what it does for me. In short, Martin Kraft himself has felt as I do. . . . You sent him to the house of the Marquis to dun him, and what did Martin Kraft tell you when he came back? That instead of demanding the money, he had asked him if he did not need a new coat." "That only proves that Martin Kraft is a goose like yourself!" "The fact is, that this gentleman was so beautiful that one would have said he was a wooden figure painted at Nuremburg," gravely said the German, who could find no more artistic comparison to express his admiration. "Well done!" said Dame Landry, contemptuously shrugging her shoulders; then adding, "but patience, patience! this very day I will go and show this charming gentleman that Madelaine Landry does not take her pay in wheedling." Just then a carriage stopped before the shop. It was raining in torrents. The housewife put on a more amiable expression, thinking that custom might come from the coach; but, to her great astonishment, the coachman, having descended slowly and clumsily from his seat, looked at the sign and entered the tailor's shop. "Master Landry?" he asked, in a loud voice, shaking his great-coat all dripping with rain. "At least, there is no need of your shaking yourself like a dog coming out of the water in order to ask for Master Landry," sharply answered Madelaine. "What do you want?" "My good woman, if I shake myself it is because I am soaked--drowned--as you can see, and I only give you a drop or two." "Much obliged for your kindness," said the housewife. "As to Master Landry, I wish to speak to him about a young gentleman . . . Zounds! what a charming little gentleman! As true as my name is Jerome Sicard, I never saw such a beauty.--Come now," said the coachman, interrupting himself, "see how the water is running down my neck," and he began to shake his hat. Dame Madelaine was bursting out anew, when the window of the carriage was lowered. A man about fifty years of age, large, coarse, rubicund, powdered, and clothed in black, called to the coachman in the voice of a Stentor. Seeing that his summons was unheeded, he opened the door, got out of the carriage, and entered the shop. "Will you tell me, you stupid, why you have stopped here instead of carrying me to the Soubise Hotel?"