m even more on Saturdays, when it was necessary to
work in order to repay the sum borrowed with interest. But, after all,
he was Providence, he was God from Tuesday to Friday of every week.

The room which he made his office, formerly the kitchen of the next
floor, was bare; the beams of the ceiling had been whitewashed, but
still bore marks of smoke. The walls, along which he had put benches,
and the stone floor, retained and gave out dampness. The fireplace,
where the crane remained, was partly filled by an iron stove in which
Cerizet burned sea-coal when the weather was severe. A platform about
half a foot high and eight feet square extended from the edge of the
fireplace; on it was fastened a common table and an armchair with
a round cushion covered with green leather. Behind him, Cerizet had
sheathed the walls with planks; also protecting himself with a little
wooden screen, painted white, from the draught between the window and
door; but this screen, made of two leaves, was so placed that the warmth
from the stove reached him. The window had enormous inside shutters of
cast-iron, held, when closed, by a bar. The door commanded respect by an
armor of the same character.

At the farther end of this room, in a corner, was a spiral-staircase,
coming, evidently, from some pulled-down shop, and bought in the rue
Chapon by Cadenet, who had fitted it through the ceiling into the
room in the entresol occupied by Cerizet. In order to prevent all
communication with the upper floors, Cerizet had exacted that the door
of that room which opened on the common landing should be walled up. The
place had thus become a fortress. The bedroom above had a cheap carpet
bought for twenty francs, an iron bedstead, a bureau, three chairs,
and an iron safe, made by a good workman, which Cerizet had bought at
a bargain. He shaved before a glass on the chimney-piece; he owned two
pairs of cotton sheets and six cotton shirts; the rest of his visible
wardrobe was of the same character. Cadenet had once seen Cerizet
dressed like a dandy of the period; he must, therefore, have kept
hidden, in some drawer of his bureau, a complete disguise with which he
could go to the opera, see the world, and not be recognized, for, had it
not been that Cadenet heard his voice, he would certainly have asked him
who he was.

What pleased the clients of this man most was his joviality and his
repartees; he talked their language. Cadenet, his two shop-men, and
C