In ten minutes' time they had come to an end of all the deep
reflections, all the moralizings, small and great, all the bad puns
made on a subject already exhausted by Rabelais three hundred and
fifty years ago. It was not a little to their credit that the
pyrotechnic display was cut short with a final squib from Malaga.

"It all goes to the shoemakers," she said. "I left a milliner because
she failed twice with my hats. The vixen has been here twenty-seven
times to ask for twenty francs. She did not know that we never have
twenty francs. One has a thousand francs, or one sends to one's notary
for five hundred; but twenty francs I have never had in my life. My
cook and my maid may, perhaps, have so much between them; but for my
own part, I have nothing but credit, and I should lose that if I took
to borrowing small sums. If I were to ask for twenty francs, I should
have nothing to distinguish me from my colleagues that walk the
boulevard."

"Is the milliner paid?" asked La Palferine.

"Oh, come now, are you turning stupid?" said she, with a wink. "She
came this morning for the twenty-seventh time, that is how I came to
mention it."

"What did you do?" asked Desroches.

"I took pity upon her, and--ordered a little hat that I have just
invented, a quite new shape. If Mlle. Amanda succeeds with it, she
will say no more about the money, her fortune is made."

"In my opinion," put in Desroches, "the finest things that I have seen