"Well, what'll you have? This poor little gentleman has not troubled either of us, Martin Kraft. By St. Genevieve! it was pitiful to see him, in midwinter, with his miserable brown coat. We could not resist the pleasure of clothing him like a gentleman as he is. Be easy; sooner or later he will pay us. I'll put my hand in the fire if he isn't as honest as he is charming." Jerome Sicard, a big fellow of thirty years or thereabouts, listened to the tailor's speech with increasing satisfaction. When it was finished, he offered Master Landry his great hand, saying: "Take it, worthy tailor; send your wife immediately to get a bottle of your best wine, and we will drink together--blast me if we don't! And you, too, worthy apprentice I you, also, shall share the bottle, for you honor the scissors and the establishment better than any of your respectable corporation." "If you don't drink wine till I bring it to you, you will run no risk of losing the little wits you have left," said Dame Landry, sharply; "you deserve, indeed, to hob-nob with my fool of a husband, for, like him, you have let yourself be bewitched by the first knave who comes along. But as you do so well the errands of this cheating Marquis, you can go and tell him that the coat shall not go out of this shop until he has paid us the three hundred livres that he owes. You can also inform him, to finish up the matter, that I am going myself to carry his bill, and if the fine gentleman is not at home I will wait for him,--if he does not, at least, give me something on account, I will go and find the commissary, and I'll let you see that I, a woman, have more spunk than either of you,--you chicken-hearted milk-sops!" "As to being a sop, I'm sopping wet, that's true enough," said Jerome Sicard; "but as to being chicken-hearted,--my good granny, if I had my whip, or only the yard-stick on the counter, and you were _my_ wife, I'd teach you speedily that I am no chicken, but a full-grown cock--fully able to teach you better than to refuse a flask of wine to my friends . . . all this without malice . . . but may the good God grant that this may give you the happy idea of using your yard-stick in training your wife, brave tailor!" said Sicard; then addressing the secretary,--"I am ready, sir." "That is well," said he, though by no means angry at the detention, for the scene had amused him. The coachman gone, Dame Landry took her large cloak, her black mantle, and a great umbrella, bade her husband bring her the coat of Segovian cloth made for M. Létorière, which she locked up, and then started in a white heat of wrath to go and wait for this _Monsieur le Charmant_, as she derisively called him. CHAPTER II THE EX-PROFESSOR OF PLESSIS COLLEGE The dwelling of the Marquis was not very far from his creditor's shop. M. de Létorière occupied two small rooms on the fifth floor of a house in the Rue St. Florentin.