To this generality the other made no reply. Descending from her stool, she blew sharply into a small paper bag, thereby distending it into a miniature balloon, and began selecting the eggs from a basket, holding each one to the light, and then dusting it with exaggerated care before placing it in the bag. While she was thus employed Zut advanced from a secluded corner, and, stretching her fore legs slowly to their utmost length, greeted her acquaintance of the morning with a yawn. Finding in the cat an outlet for her embarrassment, Espérance made another effort to give the interview a friendly turn. "He is beautiful, madame, your matou," she said. "It is a female," replied Madame Caille, turning abruptly from the basket, "and she does not care for strangers." This second snub was not calculated to encourage neighborly overtures, but Madame Sergeot had felt herself to be in the wrong, and was not to be so readily repulsed. "We do not see Monsieur Caille at the Salon Malakoff," she continued. "We should be enchanted"-- "My husband shaves himself," retorted Alexandrine, with renewed dignity. "But his hair"--ventured Espérance. "_I_ cut it!" thundered her foe. Here Madame Sergeot made a false move. She laughed. Then, in confusion, and striving, too late, to retrieve herself--"Pardon, madame," she added, "but it seems droll to me, that. After all, ten sous is a sum so small"-- "All the world, unfortunately," broke in Madame Caille, "has not the wherewithal to buy mirrors, and pay itself frescoes and appareils antiseptiques! The eggs are twenty-four sous--but we do not pride ourselves upon our eggs. Perhaps you had better seek them elsewhere for the future!" For sole reply Madame Sergeot had recourse to her expressive shrug, and then laying two francs upon the counter, and gathering up the sous which Alexandrine rather hurled at than handed her, she took her way toward the door with all the dignity at her command. But Madame Caille, feeling her snub to have been insufficient, could not let her go without a final thrust. "Perhaps your husband will be so amiable as to shampoo my cat!" she shouted. "She seems to like your 'Salon'!" But Espérance, while for concord's sake inclined to tolerate all rudeness to herself, was not prepared to hear Hippolyte insulted, and so, wheeling at the doorway, flung all her resentment into two words. "Mal élevée!" "Gueuse!" screamed Alexandrine from the desk. And so they parted.