seholds
that formed its present denizens, endless partitions and false floors
had been run up. This was why the _citoyen_ Remacle, concierge and
jobbing tailor, perched in a sort of 'tween-decks, as low ceilinged as
it was confined in area. Here he could be seen through the glass door
sitting cross-legged on his work-bench, his bowed back within an inch of
the floor above, stitching away at a National Guard's uniform, while the
_citoyenne_ Remacle, whose cooking stove boasted no chimney but the well
of the staircase, poisoned the other tenants with the fumes of her
stew-pots and frying-pans, and their little girl Josephine, her face
smudged with treacle and looking as pretty as an angel, played on the
threshold with Mouton, the joiner's dog. The _citoyenne_, whose heart
was as capacious as her ample bosom and broad back, was reputed to
bestow her favours on her neighbour the _citoyen_ Dupont senior, who was
one of the twelve constituting the Committee of Surveillance. At any
rate her husband had his strong suspicions, and from morning to night
the house resounded with the racket of the alternate squabbles and
reconciliations of the pair. The upper floors were occupied by the
_citoyen_ Chaperon, gold and silver-smith, who had his shop on the Quai
de l'Horloge, by a health officer, an attorney, a goldbeater, and
several employes at the Palais de Justice.

Evariste Gamelin climbed the old-fashioned staircase as far as the
fourth and last storey, where he had his studio together with a bedroom
for his mother. At this point ended the wooden stairs laid with tiles
that took the place of the grand stairway of the more important floors.
A ladder clamped to the wall led to a cock-loft, from which at that
moment emerged a stout man with a handsome, florid, rosy-cheeked face,
climbing painfully down with an enormous package clasped in his arms,
yet humming gaily to himself: _J'ai perdu mon serviteur_.

Breaking off his song, he wished a polite good-day to Gamelin, who
returned him a fraternal greeting and helped him down with his parcel,
for which the old man thanked him.

"There," said he, shouldering his burden again, "you have a batch of
dancing-dolls which I am going to deliver straight away to a
toy-merchant in the Rue de la Loi. There is a whole tribe of them
inside; I am their creator; they have received of me a perishable body,
exempt from joys and sufferings. I have not given them the gift of
thought, for I am a benevo