summers gone by, among the furniture and household gear, something
is moving. It is an old simpleton with a long bald neck, pink and
rough, making you think of a fowl's neck which has prematurely
molted through disease. His profile is that of a hen, too--no chin
and a long nose. A gray overlay of beard felts his receded cheek,
and you see his heavy eyelids, rounded and horny, move up and down
like shutters on the dull beads of his eyes.

Barque has already noticed him: "Watch him--he's a treasure-seeker.
He says there's one somewhere in this hovel that he's stepfather to.
You'll see him directly go on all-fours and push his old phizog in
every corner there is. Tiens, watch him."

With the aid of his stick, the old man proceeded to take methodical
soundings. He tapped along the foot of the walls and on the
floor-tiles.. He was hustled by the coming and going of the
occupants of the house, by callers, and by the swing of Palmyra's
broom; but she let him alone and said nothing, thinking to herself,
no doubt, that the exploitation of the national calamity is a more
profitable treasure than problematical caskets.

Two gossips are standing in a recess and exchanging confidences in
low voices, hard by an old map of Russia that is peopled with flies.
"Oui, but it's with the Picon bitters that you've got to be careful.
If you haven't got a light touch, you can't get your sixteen glasses
out of a bottle, and so you lose too much profit. I don't say but
what one's all right in one's purse, even so, but one doesn't make
enough. To guard against that, the retailers ought to agree among
themselves, but the understanding's so difficult to bring off, even
when it's in the general interest."