"Yes--they've been a team for three or four good months."

"She's wild upon him, and he on her."

"They must lead a gay life."

"Sometimes I ask myself where the devil Sleepinbuff gets all the money he
spends. It appears that he pays all last night's expenses, three
coaches-and-four, and a breakfast this morning for twenty, at ten francs
a-head."

"They say he has come into some property. That's why Ninny Moulin, who
has a good nose for eating and drinking, made acquaintance with him last
night--leaving out of the question that he may have some designs on the
Bacchanal Queen."

"He! In a lot! He's rather too ugly. The girls like to dance with him
because he makes people laugh--but that's all. Little Rose-Pompon, who is
such a pretty creature, has taken him as a harmless chap-her-own, in the
absence of her student."

"The coaches! the coaches!" exclaimed the crowd, all with one voice.

Forced to stop in the midst of the maskers, Mother Bunch had not lost a
word of this conversation, which was deeply painful to her, as it
concerned her sister, whom she had not seen for a long time. Not that the
Bacchanal Queen had a bad heart; but the sight of the wretched poverty of
Mother Bunch--a poverty which she had herself shared, but which she had
not had the strength of mind to bear any longer--caused such bitter grief
to the gay, thoughtless girl, that she would no more expose herself to