Durtal was in a situation familiar to all bachelors who have the concierge do their cleaning.

Only these know how a tiny lamp can fairly drink up oil, and how the contents of a bottle of cognac can become paler and weaker without ever diminishing.

They know, too, how a once comfortable bed can become forbidding, and how scrupulously a concierge can respect its least fold or crease.

They learn to be resigned and to wash out a glass when they are thirsty and make their own fire when they are cold.
Durtal's concierge was an old man with drooping moustache and a powerful breath of "three-six." Indolent and placid, he opposed an unbudgeable inertia to Durtal's frantic and profanely expressed demand that the sweeping be done at the same hour every morning.
Threats, prayers, insults, the withholding of gratuities, were without effect.

Pere Rateau took off his cap, scratched his head, promised, in the tone of a man much moved, to mend his ways, and next day came later than ever.
"What a nuisance!" thought Durtal today, as he heard a key turning in the lock, then he looked at his watch and observed that once again the concierge was arriving after three o'clock in the afternoon.
There was nothing for it but to submit with a sigh to the ensuing hullabaloo.