f
temper.

"I told you," he was saying, "to water the flowers from the rue Massena
to the place Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely. You paid no attention
to me! _Sac-a-papier_! suppose the relations should take it into their
heads to come here to-day because the weather is fine, what would they
say to me? They'd shriek as if they were burned; they'd say horrid
things of us, and calumniate us--"

"Monsieur," said Jacquet, "we want to know where Madame Jules is
buried."

"Madame Jules _who_?" he asked. "We've had three Madame Jules within the
last week. Ah," he said, interrupting himself, "here comes the funeral
of Monsieur le Baron de Maulincour! A fine procession, that! He has soon
followed his grandmother. Some families, when they begin to go, rattle
down like a wager. Lots of bad blood in Parisians."

"Monsieur," said Jacquet, touching him on the arm, "the person I spoke
of is Madame Jules Desmarets, the wife of the broker of that name."

"Ah, I know!" he replied, looking at Jacquet. "Wasn't it a funeral with
thirteen mourning coaches, and only one mourner in the twelve first? It
was so droll we all noticed it--"

"Monsieur, take care, Monsieur Desmarets is with me; he might hear you,
and what you say is not seemly."

"I beg pardon, monsieur! you are quite right. Excuse me, I took you for
heirs. Monsieur," he continued, after consulting a plan of the cemetery,
"Madame Jules is in the rue Marechal Lefebre, alley No. 4, between
Mademoiselle Raucourt, of the Comedie-Francaise, and Monsieur
Moreau-Malvin, a butcher, for whom a handsome tomb in white marble has
been ordered, which will be one of the finest in the cemetery--"

"Monsieur," said Jacquet, interrupting him, "that does not help us."

"True," said the official, looking round him. "Jean," he cried, to a man
whom he saw at a little distance, "conduct these gentlemen to the
grave of Madame Jules Desmarets, the broker's wife. You know where it
is,--near to Mademoiselle Raucourt, the tomb where there's a bust."

The two friends followed the guide; but they did not reach the steep
path which leads to the upper part of the cemetery without having
to pass through a score of proposals and requests, made, with honied
softness, by the touts of marble-workers, iron-founders, and monumental
sculptors.

"If monsieur would like to order _something_, we would do it on the most
reasonable terms."

Jacquet was fortunate enough to be able to spare his friend the hearing