oubtful light by which a clever salesman can
ascribe to his goods the color his customers inquire for. The young man
seemed very scornful of this part of the house; his eyes had not yet
rested on it. The windows of the second floor, where the Venetian blinds
were drawn up, revealing little dingy muslin curtains behind the large
Bohemian glass panes, did not interest him either. His attention was
attracted to the third floor, to the modest sash-frames of wood, so
clumsily wrought that they might have found a place in the Museum of
Arts and Crafts to illustrate the early efforts of French carpentry.
These windows were glazed with small squares of glass so green that, but
for his good eyes, the young man could not have seen the blue-checked
cotton curtains which screened the mysteries of the room from profane
eyes. Now and then the watcher, weary of his fruitless contemplation,
or of the silence in which the house was buried, like the whole
neighborhood, dropped his eyes towards the lower regions. An involuntary
smile parted his lips each time he looked at the shop, where, in fact,
there were some laughable details.

A formidable wooden beam, resting on four pillars, which appeared to
have bent under the weight of the decrepit house, had been encrusted
with as many coats of different paint as there are of rouge on an old
duchess' cheek. In the middle of this broad and fantastically carved
joist there was an old painting representing a cat playing rackets. This
picture was what moved the young man to mirth. But it must be said
that the wittiest of modern painters could not invent so comical a
caricature. The animal held in one of its forepaws a racket as big as
itself, and stood on its hind legs to aim at hitting an enormous ball,
returned by a man in a fine embroidered coat. Drawing, color, and
accessories, all were treated in such a way as to suggest that the
artist had meant to make game of the shop-owner and of the passing
observer. Time, while impairing this artless painting, had made it yet
more grotesque by introducing some uncertain features which must have
puzzled the conscientious idler. For instance, the cat's tail had been
eaten into in such a way that it might now have been taken for the
figure of a spectator--so long, and thick, and furry were the tails of
our forefathers' cats. To the right of the picture, on an azure field
which ill-disguised the decay of the wood, might be read the name
"Guillaume," and to