soon brought to the ears of M. Hardy the hurried
clanging of the alarm-bell of the burning factory.

[35] We wish it to be understood, that the necessities of our story alone
have made the Wolves the assailants. While endeavoring to paint the evils
arising the abuse of the spirit of association, we do not wish to ascribe
a character of savage hostility to one sect rather than to the other to
the Wolves more than to the Devourers. The Wolves, a club of united
stone-cutters, are generally industrious, intelligent workmen, whose
situation is the more worthy of interest, as not only their labors,
conducted with mathematical precision, are of the rudest and most
wearisome kind, but they are likewise out of work during three or four
months of the year, their profession being, unfortunately, one of those
which winter condemns to a forced cessation. A number of Wolves, in order
to perfect themselves in their trade, attend every evening a course of
linear geometry, applied to the cutting of stone, analogous to that given
by M. Agricole Perdignier, for the benefit of carpenters. Several working
stone-cutters sent an architectural model in plaster to the last
exhibition.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GO-BETWEEN.

A few days have elapsed since the conflagration of M. Hardy's factory.
The following scene takes place in the Rue Clovis, in the house where
Rodin had lodged, and which was still inhabited by Rose-Pompon, who,
without the least scruple, availed herself of the household arrangements
of her friend Philemon. It was about noon, and Rose-Pompon, alone in the
chamber of the student, who was still absent, was breakfasting very gayly
by the fireside; but how singular a breakfast! what a queer fire! how
strange an apartment!

Imagine a large room, lighted by two windows without curtains--for as
they looked on empty space, the lodger had fear of being overlooked. One
side of this apartment served as a wardrobe, for there was suspended
Rose-Pompon's flashy costume of debardeur, not far from the boat-man's
jacket of Philemon, with his large trousers of coarse, gray stuff,
covered with pitch (shiver my timbers!), just as if this intrepid mariner
had bunked in the forecastle of a frigate, during a voyage round the
globe. A gown of Rose Pompon's hung gracefully over a pair of pantaloons,
the legs of which seemed to come from beneath the petticoat. On the
lowest of several book-shelves, very dusty and neglected, by the side of
three old