I could learn nothing from the old woman. I turned slowly towards the door.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"Back to my friend."
"Ah, you have a friend! Does he live in Paris?"
"We got to Paris only this morning."
"Well, if you haven't a place to lodge in, why don't you come here? You will be well taken care of and it's an honest house. If your family get tired of waiting to hear from Barberin they may come here and then they'll find you. What I say is for your own interest. What age is your friend?"
"He is a little younger than I."
"Just think! two boys on the streets of Paris! You could get into such a bad place; now this is real respectable on account of the locality."
The Hotel du Cantal was one of the dirtiest lodging houses that I had ever seen and I had seen some pretty dirty ones! But what the old woman said was worth considering, besides we could not be particular. I had not found my family in their beautiful Paris mansion yet. Mattia had been right to want to get all the money we could on our way to the city. What should we have done if we had not our seventeen francs in our pockets?
"How much will you charge for a room for my friend and myself?" I asked.
"Ten cents a day. That's not much."
"Well, we'll come back to-night."
"Come back early; Paris is a bad place at night for boys," she called after me.
