The job was an unsavoury one, difficult of accomplishment, and with
little hope of adequate reward. However, despite reason, obstinacy
prevailed, and I entered into my new investigation with a keener
energy than I could have summoned to aid me in any investigation
leading to any end, valuable or worthy.

One day, late in a fine afternoon, toward the end of September, I
entered the holy of holies of the city of dust. The place was
evidently the recognised abode of a number of chiffoniers, for some
sort of arrangement was manifested in the formation of the dust heaps
near the road. I passed amongst these heaps, which stood like orderly
sentries, determined to penetrate further and trace dust to its
ultimate location.

As I passed along I saw behind the dust heaps a few forms that flitted
to and fro, evidently watching with interest the advent of any
stranger to such a place. The district was like a small Switzerland,
and as I went forward my tortuous course shut out the path behind me.

Presently I got into what seemed a small city or community of
chiffoniers. There were a number of shanties or huts, such as may be
met with in the remote parts of the Bog of Allan--rude places with
wattled walls, plastered with mud and roofs of rude thatch made from
stable refuse--such places as one would not like to enter for any
consideration, and which even in water-colour could only look
picturesque if judiciously treated. In the midst of these huts was one
of the strangest adaptations--I cannot say habitations--I had ever
seen. An immense old wardrobe, the colossal remnant of some boudoir of
Charles VII, or Henry II, had been converted into a dwelling-house.
The double doors lay open, so that the entire menage was open to
public view. In the open half of the wardrobe was a common
sitting-room of some four feet by six, in which sat, smoking their
pipes round a charcoal brazier, no fewer than six old soldiers of the
First Republic, with their uniforms torn and worn threadbare.
Evidently they were of the _mauvais sujet_ class; their bleary eyes
and limp jaws told plainly of a common love of absinthe; and their
eyes had that haggard, worn look of slumbering ferocity which follows
hard in the wake of drink. The other side stood as of old, with its
shelves intact, save that they were cut to half their depth, and in
each shelf of which there were six, was a bed made with rags and
straw. The half-dozen of worthies who inhabited this struc