the left, "Successor to Master Chevrel." Sun and
rain had worn away most of the gilding parsimoniously applied to the
letters of this superscription, in which the Us and Vs had changed
places in obedience to the laws of old-world orthography.

To quench the pride of those who believe that the world is growing
cleverer day by day, and that modern humbug surpasses everything, it may
be observed that these signs, of which the origin seems so whimsical to
many Paris merchants, are the dead pictures of once living pictures
by which our roguish ancestors contrived to tempt customers into their
houses. Thus the Spinning Sow, the Green Monkey, and others, were
animals in cages whose skills astonished the passer-by, and whose
accomplishments prove the patience of the fifteenth-century artisan.
Such curiosities did more to enrich their fortunate owners than the
signs of "Providence," "Good-faith," "Grace of God," and "Decapitation
of John the Baptist," which may still be seen in the Rue Saint-Denis.

However, our stranger was certainly not standing there to admire the
cat, which a minute's attention sufficed to stamp on his memory. The
young man himself had his peculiarities. His cloak, folded after the
manner of an antique drapery, showed a smart pair of shoes, all the more
remarkable in the midst of the Paris mud, because he wore white silk
stockings, on which the splashes betrayed his impatience. He had just
come, no doubt, from a wedding or a ball; for at this early hour he had
in his hand a pair of white gloves, and his black hair, now out of curl,
and flowing over his shoulders, showed that it had been dressed _a la
Caracalla_, a fashion introduced as much by David's school of painting
as by the mania for Greek and Roman styles which characterized the early
years of this century.

In spite of the noise made by a few market gardeners, who, being late,
rattled past towards the great market-place at a gallop, the busy street
lay in a stillness of which the magic charm is known only to those who
have wandered through deserted Paris at the hours when its roar, hushed
for a moment, rises and spreads in the distance like the great voice
of the sea. This strange young man must have seemed as curious to the
shopkeeping folk of the "Cat and Racket" as the "Cat and Racket" was
to him. A dazzlingly white cravat made his anxious face look even paler
than it really was. The fire that flashed in his black eyes, gloomy
and sparkling by t