ging on
the walls, always a large number of drinkers, a plenty of wenches, a
window on the street, a vine at the door, and over the door a flaring
piece of sheet-iron, painted with an apple and a woman, rusted by
the rain and turning with the wind on an iron pin. This species of
weather-vane which looked upon the pavement was the signboard.

Night was falling; the square was dark; the wine-shop, full of candles,
flamed afar like a forge in the gloom; the noise of glasses and
feasting, of oaths and quarrels, which escaped through the broken panes,
was audible. Through the mist which the warmth of the room spread over
the window in front, a hundred confused figures could be seen swarming,
and from time to time a burst of noisy laughter broke forth from it.
The passers-by who were going about their business, slipped past this
tumultuous window without glancing at it. Only at intervals did some
little ragged boy raise himself on tiptoe as far as the ledge, and hurl
into the drinking-shop, that ancient, jeering hoot, with which drunken
men were then pursued: "Aux Houls, saouls, saouls, saouls!"

Nevertheless, one man paced imperturbably back and forth in front of the
tavern, gazing at it incessantly, and going no further from it than a
pikernan from his sentry-box. He was enveloped in a mantle to his very
nose. This mantle he had just purchased of the old-clothes man, in the
vicinity of the "Eve's Apple," no doubt to protect himself from the cold
of the March evening, possibly also, to conceal his costume. From time
to time he paused in front of the dim window with its leaden lattice,
listened, looked, and stamped his foot.

At length the door of the dram-shop opened. This was what he appeared to
be waiting for. Two boon companions came forth. The ray of light which
escaped from the door crimsoned for a moment their jovial faces.

The man in the mantle went and stationed himself on the watch under a
porch on the other side of the street.

"_Corne et tonnerre_!" said one of the comrades. "Seven o'clock is on
the point of striking. 'Tis the hour of my appointed meeting."

"I tell you," repeated his companion, with a thick tongue, "that I don't
live in the Rue des Mauvaises Paroles, _indignus qui inter mala verba
habitat_. I have a lodging in the Rue Jean-Pain-Mollet, _in vico
Johannis Pain-Mollet_. You are more horned than a unicorn if you assert
the contrary. Every one knows that he who once mounts astride a bear
is nev