Poterne turned quickly and said in an undertone:
“Don’t call me by name, I beg you; there’s no need of the girl’s knowing my real name; she might repeat it by accident, or from stupidity, and my whole plan would be overboard.”
“You ought to be overboard yourself! But come, tell me what scheme you have thought up, and let me see if it has any sense; for I didn’t listen to you very carefully this morning.”
“It is very simple; we propose to try to make young Chérubin fall in love, in order to entangle him in an intrigue which may prove lucrative for us.”
“Alas, yes! for although ‘gold may be a mere chimera,’ all these rascally tailors refuse to make coats for me without some of that same chimera!”
“To make sure that our Adonis becomes deeply enamored, we must first of all find a pretty girl.”
“That is true; it’s the same way with jugged hare--first catch your hare.”
“Well, I have discovered what we need; here, in this house, on the third floor back, there is a rose, a genuine rose!”
“A rose in this vile hovel--and on the back! I am terribly afraid that your rose is only a hip!”
“You will be able to judge for yourself directly. This is the time when the work-girls leave their work; indeed, I am surprised that they haven’t come out yet.”
“Oh! I don’t hold her out as a prize-winner; but she makes a very modest appearance; she is very fond of a little _pays_[A] of hers, who was obliged to go into the army as a simple _tourlourou_,[B] and it would make her perfectly happy to be able to save up enough money to marry her little pays when he comes home. So she won’t listen to any of the young men who run after her every night, because she knows that they’re ne’er-do-wells, who won’t help her to set up housekeeping with her little pays.”
“Bravo! the young woman has excellent principles. How did you make her acquaintance? by treating her to chestnuts?”
“By defending her against a young wig-maker’s apprentice, who, when he pretended to take her arm, always took hold of something else.”
“Those wig-makers are sad villains. This is what the habit of making curls leads to!--What proposition have you made to this rose-bud?”
“In the first place, I represented myself as a Polish noble, the Comte de Globeski.”