tale."

"My friend here," said Bixiou, motioning to Gazonal, "has an immense
family interest in ascertaining whether a young lady of a good and
wealthy house, whom he wishes to marry, has ever gone wrong."

"How much will monsieur give for the information," she asked, looking
at Gazonal, who was no longer surprised by anything.

"One hundred francs," he said.

"No, thank you!" she said with a grimace of refusal worthy of a macaw.

"Then say how much you want, my little Madame Nourrisson," cried
Bixiou catching her round the waist.

"In the first place, my dear gentlemen, I have never, since I've been
in the business, found man or woman to haggle over happiness.
Besides," she said, letting a cold smile flicker on her lips, and
enforcing it by an icy glance full of catlike distrust, "if it doesn't
concern your happiness, it concerns your fortune; and at the height
where I find you lodging no man haggles over a 'dot'-- Come," she
said, "out with it! What is it you want to know, my lambs?"

"About the Beunier family," replied Bixiou, very glad to find out
something in this indirect manner about persons in whom he was
interested.

"Oh! as for that," she said, "one louis is quite enough."