"What! old Chardin? As if he lived anywhere at all!--He is drunk by
six in the morning; he makes a mattress once a month; he hangs about
the wineshops all day; he plays at pools--"
"He plays at pools?" said Josepha.
"You do not understand, madame, pools of billiards, I mean, and he
wins three or four a day, and then he drinks."
"Water out of the pools, I suppose?" said Josepha. "But if Idamore
haunts the Boulevard, by inquiring through my friend Vraulard, we
could find him."
"I don't know, madame; all this was six months ago. Idamore was one of
the sort who are bound to find their way into the police courts, and
from that to Melun--and the--who knows--?"
"To the prison yard!" said Josepha.
"Well, madame, you know everything," said the old woman, smiling.
"Well, if my girl had never known that scamp, she would now be--Still,
she was in luck, all the same, you will say, for Monsieur Grenouville
fell so much in love with her that he married her--"
"And what brought that about?"
"Olympe was desperate, madame. When she found herself left in the
lurch for that little actress--and she took a rod out of pickle for
her, I can tell you; my word, but she gave her a dressing!--and when
she had lost poor old Thoul, who worshiped her, she would have nothing
more to say to the men.
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