hesus_ (sarcophagus)
curtains, all silk; glasses set in gold, and everything you can mention,
all beautiful enough to astonish you; just, for all the world, like one
of them grand cafes on the Boulevards! As for the carpets,--oh, you
never trod on the like of them, I'll be bound. Put your foot on them,
and you'd fancy you was stepping on velvet, and take it off again for
fear of spoiling it. When everything was completed, the commandant came
to look at it,--just to see if he could find out anything more he
wanted; but he could not. So then he spoke to Alfred, and says he,
'Could you take charge of my rooms and keep them in nice order, light
fires from time to time, and get them ready for me when I wish to occupy
them? I shall not be here often,' says he, 'and would always write you a
line before coming, to give you time to prepare them.' 'Yes, commandant,
I can,' answers my flatterer of an Alfred. 'And what shall you charge?'
'Twenty francs a month, commandant.' 'Twenty francs!' exclaimed the
commandant. 'Why, porter, you are jesting, surely!' And hereupon he
began bating Alfred down in the most shabby manner, trying to squeeze
poor people like us out of two or three miserable francs, when he had
been squandering thousands in fitting up his grand apartments, which,
after all, he did not mean to live in! However, after a deal of
battling, we got twelve francs a month out of him,--a paltry, pitiful,
two-farthing captain! What a difference, now, between you and him!"
added the porteress, addressing Rodolph with an admiring glance. "You
don't call yourself fine names and titles,--you only look like a plain
body,--you must be poor, or you would not perch yourself on the fourth
floor; and yet you agreed with me for six francs, without attempting to
bate me down!"

"And when did the commandant pay you his next visit?"

"I'll tell you,--and good fun it is, too. My gentleman must have been
nicely choused by somebody. Three times did he write (same as to-day),
ordering us to light a fire and have everything ready for the reception
of a lady he expected would come. Come! Yes, I daresay he may expect a
long time first, I rather think."

"Nobody came then?"

"Listen. The first time the commandant arrived, strutting and swelling
like a turkey-cock, humming and singing, after his manner, all the gay
tunes of the day, walking up and down his fine room with his hands stuck
in his pockets, and occasionally stopping to arrange his hai