“What is to become of me?” said the Baron, “for I will only stay here till I see my way.”

“Well, shall I find a pigeon-hole for you?  Listen, you old pirate.  Women are what you want.  They are consolation in all circumstances.  Attend now.—­At the end of the Alley, Rue Saint-Maur-du-Temple, there is a poor family I know of where there is a jewel of a little girl, prettier than I was at sixteen.—­Ah! there is a twinkle in your eye already!—­The child works sixteen hours a day at embroidering costly pieces for the silk merchants, and earns sixteen sous a day—­one sou an hour!—­and feeds like the Irish, on potatoes fried in rats’ dripping, with bread five times a week—­and drinks canal water out of the town pipes, because the Seine water costs too much; and she cannot set up on her own account for lack of six or seven thousand francs.  Your wife and children bore you to death, don’t they?—­Besides, one cannot submit to be nobody where one has been a little Almighty.  A father who has neither money nor honor can only be stuffed and kept in a glass case.”

The Baron could not help smiling at these abominable jests.

“Well, now, Bijou is to come to-morrow morning to bring me an embroidered wrapper, a gem!  It has taken six months to make; no one else will have any stuff like it!  Bijou is very fond of me; I give her tidbits and my old gowns.  And I send orders for bread and meat and wood to the family, who would break the shin-bones of the first comer if I bid them.—­I try to do a little good.  Ah!  I know what I endured from hunger myself!—­Bijou has confided to me all her little sorrows.  There is the making of a super at the Ambigu-Comique in that child.  Her dream is to wear fine dresses like mine; above all, to ride in a carriage.  I shall say to her, ’Look here, little one, would you like to have a friend of—­’ How old are you?” she asked, interrupting herself.  “Seventy-two?”

“I have given up counting.”

“‘Would you like an old gentleman of seventy-two?’ I shall say.  ’Very clean and neat, and who does not take snuff, who is as sound as a bell, and as good as a young man?  He will marry you (in the Thirteenth Arrondissement) and be very kind to you; he will place seven thousand francs in your account, and furnish you a room all in mahogany, and if you are good, he will sometimes take you to the play.  He will give you a hundred francs a month for pocket-money, and fifty francs for housekeeping.’—­I know Bijou; she is myself at fourteen.  I jumped for joy when that horrible Crevel made me his atrocious offers.  Well, and you, old man, will be disposed of for three years.  She is a good child, well behaved; for three or four years she will have her illusions—­not for longer.”

Hulot did not hesitate; he had made up his mind to refuse; but to seem grateful to the kind-hearted singer, who was benevolent after her lights, he affected to hesitate between vice and virtue.