"I'll tell you; the parrot was well known; it belonged to a Madame Herbelot, the widow of a factor, living close by, and it was also well understood that Madame Herbelot valued the parrot as much as she did her life. Well, Mother Burette said to her, 'I will lend you ten francs on your bird, but if by this day week at twelve o'clock I do not receive twenty francs with interest (it would amount to that in round numbers), if I am not paid my twenty francs, with the expenses of his keep, I shall give your Polly a trifling dose of arsenic mixed with his food.' She knew her customer well, bless you! However, by this threat Mother Burette received her twenty francs at the end of seven days, and Madame Herbelot got back her disagreeable, screaming parrot." "Mother Burette has no other way of living besides the two you have named, I suppose?" "Not that I know of. I don't know, however, what to say of some rather sly and secret transactions, carried on in a small room she never allows any one to enter, except M. Bras Rouge and an old one-eyed woman, called La Chouette." Rodolph opened his eyes with unmixed astonishment as these names sounded on his ear, and the porteress, interpreting the surprise of her future lodger according to her own notions, said: "That name would make any one stare with astonishment. Certainly La Chouette is uncommonly odd; is it not?" "It is, indeed. Does the woman who is so styled come here frequently?" "We saw her the day before yesterday, for the first time these six weeks. She was rather lame, I observed." "And what do you suppose she wants with the fortune-telling woman?" "That I do not know; at least, as to what takes place in the little room I was telling you of, where La Chouette alone is admitted with M. Bras Rouge and Mother Burette. I have, however, particularly observed that on those occasions the one-eyed woman always has a large bundle with her in her basket, and that M. Bras Rouge also carries a parcel of some size beneath his cloak, and that they always return empty-handed." "And what can these packets contain?"