"You forget, Hildegarde, that the landlord doesn't want you to do housework. Of course, if you went away while I am at my office, there wouldn't be anybody but the cat to look after the lodge and answer questions!"
"A fine job this is, where the concierge's wife isn't allowed to do housework! That was my only ambition."
"Oh, yes! the fact is that you were the cause of our being discharged from the lodge we had before this, because you did housework for the men on the fourth floor and drank all their liquor."
"Let's not go back to that. I am mortified that Monsieur Malberg had to light his candle himself; it's a stain upon our good name."
"Well then, you ought to have lighted it for him, if you have that on your conscience!"
"Hold your tongue, Hildegarde; you're very unreasonable to-night, you have something bad to say about everybody. You find fault because Monsieur Malberg has a yellow negro to work for him, and you don't seem to know that that is very distinguished. Swell people always have colored servants in their employ."
"It's a miserable fashion. But still, if that miserable Pingo or Ponceau--I never know what his name is--was only agreeable."
"Oh! what a dog of a name! Pongo! But he never talks, the blackamoor; or else he talks to himself, and says things that I don't understand; I believe that he talks Morocco!"
"Come, Hildegarde, it's almost twelve o'clock; go to bed, that's the best thing you can do."
"Yes they have, everybody except little Georget, who lives up under the roof, with his mother.--By the way, how is the poor woman to-day?"
"Not very well; she's had more fainting fits this afternoon, and I thought she was going _to put out her gas_."
"And her son hasn't come home, at midnight! that's what I call a ne'er-do-well, a downright scamp! Hildegarde, heaven didn't give us any children, and I give thanks for it in my heart; because they aren't always honey for parents, and often absinthe rules the roost, as I see in the case of Mère Georget!"
"Absinthe--absinthe--I don't hate that! it helps the digestion!"
"Oh! bless my soul! you don't hate any liquid; but I know that absinthe is bad for the health; I've heard some of the clerks at the office talking about two talented actors who played at the theatre and who put an end to themselves with absinthe; without counting several others who are in a fair way to do the same thing!"