When he got to the foot of the staircase he was taken with a fit of coughing; for emotion excited his catarrh.
"Cough away!" said Flore in the kitchen, without caring whether he heard her or not.

"Confound the old wretch! he is able enough to get over it without bothering others.

If he coughs up his soul, it will only be after--" Such were the amenities the Rabouilleuse addressed to Rouget when she was angry.

The poor man sat down in deep distress at a corner of the table in the middle of the room, and looked at his old furniture and the old pictures with a disconsolate air.
"You might at least have put on a cravat," said Flore.

"Do you think it is pleasant for people to see such a neck as yours, which is redder and more wrinkled than a turkey's ?" "But what have I done ?" he asked, lifting his big light-green eyes, full of tears, to his tormentor, and trying to face her hard countenance.
"What have you done ?" she exclaimed.