That comical chap, My-Boots, had been cunning enough at the end of last summer to espouse in authentic fashion a lady who, although rather advanced in years, had still preserved considerable traces of beauty.

She was a lady-of-the-evening of the Rue des Martyrs, none of your common street hussies.

And you should have seen this fortunate mortal, living like a man of means, with his hands in his pockets, well clad and well fed.

He could hardly be recognised, so fat had he grown.

His comrades said that his wife had as much work as she liked among the gentlemen of her acquaintance.