comes to Paris and gives me a good fee: he has lots of errands for me
to do in Paris; sometimes three or four packages a day,--either from
monsieur or madame. My bill for cartage alone comes to fifty francs a
month, more or less. If madame does set up to be somebody, she's fond
of her children; and it is I who fetch them from school and take them
back; and each time she gives me five francs,--a real great lady
couldn't do better than that. And every time I have any one in the
coach belonging to them or going to see them, I'm allowed to drive up
to the chateau,--that's all right, isn't it?"

"They say Monsieur Moreau wasn't worth three thousand francs when
Monsieur le comte made him steward of Presles," said the valet.

"Well, since 1806, there's seventeen years, and the man ought to have
made something at any rate."

"True," said the valet, nodding. "Anyway, masters are very annoying;
and I hope, for Moreau's sake, that he has made butter for his bread."

"I have often been to your house in the rue de la Chaussee d'Antin to
carry baskets of game," said Pierrotin, "but I've never had the
advantage, so far of seeing either monsieur or madame."

"Monsieur le comte is a good man," said the footman, confidentially.
"But if he insists on your helping to keep up his cognito there's
something in the wind. At any rate, so we think at the house; or else,
why should he countermand the Daumont,--why travel in a coucou? A peer
of France might afford to hire a cabriolet to himself, one would
think."