Page:A chambermaid's diary.djvu/376

 Toward evening, late, I heard a knock at my door. I lay stretched upon my bed, half naked, stupefied by drink.

"Who is there?" I cried.

"It is I."

"Who are you?"

"The waiter."

I rose, with my loosened hair falling from my shoulders, and opened the door.

"What do you want?"

The waiter smiled. He was a tall fellow with red hair, whom I had met several times on the stairs, and who always looked at me strangely.

"What do you want?" I repeated.

The waiter smiled again, apparently embarrassed, and, rolling in his fat fingers the bottom of his blue apron, covered with grease spots, he stammered:

"Mam'zelle I"

He surveyed my person with a sort of dismal desire.

"Well, come in, you brute," I cried, suddenly. And pushing him into my room, I closed the door again, violently.

Oh! misery me!

The waiter was discharged. I never knew his name!

I should not like to leave the subject of Mme. Paulhat-Durand's employment-bureau, without