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“Why were you ever induced to take up such a business?” asked Gazonal.

“For my son’s sake,” she said naively.

Such women almost invariably justify their trade by alleging noble motives. Madame Nourrisson posed as having lost several opportunities for marriage, also three daughters who had gone to the bad, and all her illusions. She showed the pawn-tickets of the Mont-de-Piete to prove the risks her business ran; declared that she did not know how to meet the “end of the month”; she was robbed, she said,–ROBBED.

The two artists looked at each other on hearing that expression, which seemed exaggerated.

“Look here, my sons, I’ll show you how we are DONE. It is not about myself, but about my opposite neighbour, Madame Mahuchet, a ladies’ shoemaker. I had loaned money to a countess, a woman who has too many passions for her means,–lives in a fine apartment filled with splendid furniture, and makes, as we say, a devil of a show with her high and mighty airs. She owed three hundred francs to her shoemaker, and was giving a dinner no later than yesterday. The shoemaker, who heard of the dinner from the cook, came to see me; we got excited, and she wanted to make a row; but I said: ‘My dear Madame Mahuchet, what good will that do? you’ll only get yourself hated. It is much better to obtain some security; and you save your bile.’ She wouldn’t listen, but go she would, and asked me to support her; so I went. ‘Madame is not at home.’–‘Up to that! we’ll wait,’ said Madame Mahuchet, ‘if we have to stay all night,’–and down we camped in the antechamber. Presently the doors began to open and shut, and feet and voices came along. I felt badly. The guests were arriving for dinner. You can see the appearance it had. The countess sent her maid to coax Madame Mahuchet: ‘Pay you to-morrow!’ in short, all the snares! Nothing took. The countess, dressed to the nines, went to the dining-room. Mahuchet heard her and opened the door. Gracious! when she saw that table sparkling with silver, the covers to the dishes and the chandeliers all glittering like a jewel-case, didn’t she go off like soda-water and fire her shot: ‘When people spend the money of others they should be sober and not give dinner-parties. Think of your being a countess and owing three hundred francs to a poor shoemaker with seven children!’ You can guess how she railed, for the Mahuchet hasn’t any education. When the countess tried to make an excuse (‘no money’) Mahuchet screamed out: ‘Look at all your fine silver, madame; pawn it and pay me!’–‘Take some yourself,’ said the countess quickly, gathering up a quantity of forks and spoons and putting them into her hands. Downstairs we rattled!–heavens! like success itself. No, before we got to the street Mahuchet began to cry–she’s a kind woman! She turned back and restored the silver; for she now understood that countess’ poverty–it was plated ware!”

“And she forked it over,” said Leon, in whom the former Mistigris occasionally reappeared.

“Ah! my dear monsieur,” said Madame Nourrisson, enlightened by the slang, “you are an artist, you write plays, you live in the rue du Helder and are friends with Madame Anatolia; you have habits that I know all about. Come, do you want some rarity in the grand style,– Carabine or Mousqueton, Malaga or Jenny Cadine?”

“Malaga, Carabine! nonsense!” cried Leon de Lora. “It was we who invented them.”

“I assure you, my good Madame Nourrisson,” said Bixiou, “that we only wanted the pleasure of making your acquaintance, and we should like very much to be informed as to how you ever came to slip into this business.”

“I was confidential maid in the family of a marshal of France, Prince d’Ysembourg,” she said, assuming the airs of a Dorine. “One morning, one of the most beplumed countesses of the Imperial court came to the house and wanted to speak to the marshal privately. I put myself in the way of hearing what she said. She burst into tears and confided to that booby of a marshal–yes, the Conde of the Republic is a booby!– that her husband, who served under him in Spain, had left her without means, and if she didn’t get a thousand francs, or two thousand, that day her children must go without food; she hadn’t any for the morrow. The marshal, who was always ready to give in those days, took two notes of a thousand francs each out of his desk, and gave them to her. I saw that fine countess going down the staircase where she couldn’t see me. She was laughing with a satisfaction that certainly wasn’t motherly, so I slipped after her to the peristyle where I heard her say to the coachman, ‘To Leroy’s.’ I ran round quickly to Leroy’s, and there, sure enough, was the poor mother. I got there in time to see her order and pay for a fifteen-hundred-franc dress; you understand that in those days people were made to pay when they bought. The next day but one she appeared at an ambassador’s ball, dressed to please all the world and some one in particular. That day I said to myself: ‘I’ve got a career! When I’m no longer young I’ll lend money to great ladies on their finery; for passion never calculates, it pays blindly.’ If you want subjects for a vaudeville I can sell you plenty.”