of this. It is
not the earthly paradise, when all is said and done.'

"'I know that, my good Bourgeat,' said I. 'But I am in a great fix. I
have a trunk downstairs with a hundred francs' worth of linen in it,
out of which I could pay the landlord and all I owe to the porter, and I
have not a hundred sous.'

"'Pooh! I have a few dibs,' replied Bourgeat joyfully, and he pulled out
a greasy old leather purse. 'Keep your linen.'

"Bourgeat paid up my arrears and his own, and settled with the porter.
Then he put our furniture and my box of linen in his cart, and pulled
it along the street, stopping in front of every house where there was a
notice board. I went up to see whether the rooms to let would suit us.
At midday we were still wandering about the neighborhood without having
found anything. The price was the great difficulty. Bourgeat proposed
that we should eat at a wine shop, leaving the cart at the door. Towards
evening I discovered, in the Cour de Rohan, Passage du Commerce, at the
very top of a house next the roof, two rooms with a staircase between
them. Each of us was to pay sixty francs a year. So there we were
housed, my humble friend and I. We dined together. Bourgeat, who earned
about fifty sous a day, had saved a hundred crowns or so; he would
soon be able to gratify his ambition by buying a barrel and a horse.
On learning of my situation--for he extracted my secrets with a quiet
craftiness and good nature, of which the remembrance touches my heart
to this day, he gave up for a time the ambition of his whole life; for
twenty-two years he had been carrying water in the street, and he now
devoted his hundred crowns to my future prospects."

Desplein at these words clutched Bianchon's arm tightly. "He gave me the
money for my examination fees! That man, my friend, understood that I
had a mission, that the needs of my intellect were greater than his. He
looked after me, he called me his boy, he lent me money to buy books, he
would come in softly sometimes to watch me at work, and took a mother's
care in seeing that I had wholesome and abundant food, instead of the
bad and insufficient nourishment I had been condemned to. Bourgeat, a
man of about forty, had a homely, mediaeval type of face, a prominent
forehead, a head that a painter might have chosen as a model for that
of Lycurgus. The poor man's heart was big with affections seeking an
object; he had never been loved but by a poodle that had died some time