"Laugh while you can, my dears!" muttered Daddy Tantaine; "for this may
be the last time you will do so."

With these words he crept down the dark staircase, which was only
lighted up on Sundays, owing to the high price of gas, and, peeping
through the glass door of the porter's lodge, saw Madame Loupins engaged
in cooking; and, with the timid knock of a man who has learned his
lesson in poverty's grammar, he entered.

"Here is my rent, madame," said he, placing on the table ten francs
and twenty centimes. Then, as the woman was scribbling a receipt, he
launched into a statement of his own affairs, and told her that he had
come into a little property which would enable him to live in comfort
during his few remaining years on earth; and--evidently fearing that
his well-known poverty might cause Madame Loupins to discredit his
assertions--drew out his pocketbook and exhibited several banknotes.
This exhibition of wealth so surprised the landlady, that when the old
man left she insisted on lighting him to the door. He turned eastward as
soon as he had left the house, and, glancing at the names of the shops,
entered a grocer's establishment at the corner of the Rue de Petit Pont.
This grocer, thanks to a certain cheap wine, manufactured for him by a
chemist at Bercy, had achieved a certain notoriety in that quarter. He
was very stout and pompous, a widower, and a sergeant in the National
Guard. His name was Melusin. In all poor districts five o'clock is a
busy hour for the shopkeepers, for the workmen are returning from their
labors, and their wives are busy in their preparations for their evening
meal. M. Melusin was so busily engaged, giving orders and seeing that
they were executed, that he did not even notice the entrance of Daddy
Tantaine; but had he done so, he would not have put himself out for so