have been!
Alas! There is nothing left to us of our days of prosperity! One thing
only, a picture, of which I think a great deal, but which I am willing
to part with, for I must live! Item, one must live!"

While Jondrette thus talked, with an apparent incoherence which
detracted nothing from the thoughtful and sagacious expression of his
physiognomy, Marius raised his eyes, and perceived at the other end of
the room a person whom he had not seen before. A man had just entered,
so softly that the door had not been heard to turn on its hinges. This
man wore a violet knitted vest, which was old, worn, spotted, cut and
gaping at every fold, wide trousers of cotton velvet, wooden shoes on
his feet, no shirt, had his neck bare, his bare arms tattooed, and his
face smeared with black. He had seated himself in silence on the nearest
bed, and, as he was behind Jondrette, he could only be indistinctly
seen.

That sort of magnetic instinct which turns aside the gaze, caused M.
Leblanc to turn round almost at the same moment as Marius. He could not
refrain from a gesture of surprise which did not escape Jondrette.

"Ah! I see!" exclaimed Jondrette, buttoning up his coat with an air of
complaisance, "you are looking at your overcoat? It fits me! My faith,
but it fits me!"

"Who is that man?" said M. Leblanc.

"Him?" ejaculated Jondrette, "he's a neighbor of mine. Don't pay any
attention to him."

The neighbor was a singular-looking individual. However, manufactories
of chemical products abound in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau. Many of the
workmen might have black faces. Besides this, M. Leblanc's whole person
was expressive of candid and intrepid confidence.

He went on:--

"Excuse me; what were you saying, M. Fabantou?"

"I was telling you, sir, and dear protector," replied Jondrette placing
his elbows on the table and contemplating M. Leblanc with steady and
tender eyes, not unlike the eyes of the boa-constrictor, "I was telling
you, that I have a picture to sell."

A slight sound came from the door. A second man had just entered and
seated himself on the bed, behind Jondrette.

Like the first, his arms were bare, and he had a mask of ink or
lampblack.

Although this man had, literally, glided into the room, he had not been
able to prevent M. Leblanc catching sight of him.

"Don't mind them," said Jondrette, "they are people who belong in the
house. So I was saying, that there remains in my possession a valuable
pi