"Let me tell you, sir-r-r!" cried M. Pipelet, addressing the placid-looking man at the door, "that I have no dealings with that beggar Cabrion, and certainly none in the way of friendship!" "No, that I'm sure you have not!" screamed out Madame Pipelet, in confirmation of her husband's words; adding, as she displayed her forbidding countenance over her husband's shoulder, "and I wonder very much where that old dunderhead has come from to ask such a stupid question?" "I beg your pardon, madame," said the guileless-looking individual thus addressed, again withdrawing another step to escape the concentrated anger of the enraged pair; "placards are made to be read,--you put out a board, which I read,--now allow me to say that I am not to blame for perusing what you set up purposely to attract attention, but that you are decidedly wrong to insult me so grossly when I civilly come to you, as your own board desires, for information." "Oh, you old fool! Get along with you!" exclaimed Anastasie, with a most hideous distortion of visage. "You are a rude, unmannerly woman!" "Alfred, deary, just fetch me your boot-jack: I'll give that old chatterer such a mark that his own mother shall not know her darling again!" "Really, madame, I can't say I understand receiving such rough treatment when I come, by your own directions, to make inquiries respecting what you or your husband have publicly notified in the streets." "But, sir-r-r--!" cried the unhappy porter. "Sir!" interrupted the hitherto placid inquirer, now worked up into extreme rage, "Sir! You may carry your friendship with your M. Cabrion as far as you please, but, give me leave to tell you, you have no business to parade yourself or your friendships in the face of everybody in the streets. And I think it right, sir, to let you know a bit of my mind; which is, that you are a boasting braggart, and that I shall go at once and lay a formal complaint against you at the police office." Saying which, the individual departed in an apparently towering passion. "Anastasie," moaned out poor Pipelet, in a dolorous voice, "I shall never survive all this! I feel but too surely that I am struck with death,--I have not a hope of escape! You hear my name is publicly exposed in the open streets, in company with that scoundrel's! He has dared to placard the hideous tale of my having entered into a treaty of friendship with him! And the innocent, unsuspecting public will read the hateful statement--remember it--repeat it--spread the detestable report! Oh, monstrous, enormous, devilish invention! None but a fiend could have had such a thought. But there must be an end to this. The measure is full,--ay, to overflowing; and things have come to such a pass that either this accursed painter or myself must perish in the deadly struggle!" And, wrought up to such a state of vigorous resolution as to completely conquer his usual apathy, M. Pipelet seized the portrait of Cabrion and rushed towards the door.