ou? As for me, I'm
upset--bewildered--stupefied. Pretty doings have there been in the house
since you was here. And my poor Alfred,--obliged to keep his bed ever
since yesterday!"

"Why, what has happened?"

"Positively, don't you guess? Still going on in the old way with that
monster of a painter, who is more bitter than ever against Alfred. He
has quite muddled his brains, till I declare I don't know what to do
with him."

"Cabrion again?"

"Oh, _he'll_ never leave off."

"He must be the very devil!"

"Really, M. Rodolph, I shall very soon think so; for he always knows the
very instant I quit the house. Scarcely is my back turned, than there he
is, in the twinkling of an eye, worrying and tormenting my poor old dear
of a husband, who is as helpless and frightened as a babby. Only last
night, when I had just stepped out as far as M. Ferrand's the
notary's--Ah, there's pretty work there, too!"

"But Cecily?" said Rodolph, with some little impatience. "I called to
know--"

"Hold hard, my king of lodgers! Don't be in such a hurry, or you'll put
me out. And I've such a deal to tell you, I don't know when I shall have
done; and if once I'm interrupted in a story, I never know when to begin
again."

"There now, go on as fast as you can; I'm listening."

"Well, then, first and foremost, what do you think has happened in the
house? Ah, you'll never guess, so I'll tell you. Only imagine, old
Mother Burette's being taken up!"

"What, the female pawnbroker?"

"Oh, Lord, she seems to have had a curious mixture of trades: for
besides being a money-lender, she was a receiver of stolen goods, a
melter of gold and silver, a fortune-teller, a cheat, a dealer in
second-hand clothes, and any sort of contraband articles. The worst of
the story is that M. Bras-Rouge, her old sweetheart and our principal
lodger, is also arrested. I tell you the house is thoroughly upset with
these strange doings."

"Arrested! Bras-Rouge arrested?"

"That he was, I can promise you. Why, even his mischievous little imp of
a son--the lame boy we call Tortillard--has also been locked up. They
say that lots of murders have been planned and managed at his house,
which was the well-known resort of a gang of ruffians; that the
Chouette, one of Mother Burette's most particular friends, has been
strangled; and that, if assistance had not arrived in time, Mother
Mathieu, the dealer in precious stones for whom Morel worked, would also
have been mur