counter, covered with lead, was decked with jugs with iron hoops,
and various pewter measures. In an open cupboard, fastened to the wall,
there were several flasks of glass, so fashioned as to represent the
pedestrian figure of the Emperor. These bottles contained sundry
cordials, red and green in colour, and known by the names of "Drops for
the Brave," "Ratafia of the Column," etc., etc.

A large black cat, with green eyes, was sitting near the ogress, and
seemed the familiar demon of the place. Then, in strange contrast, a
holy branch of boxwood, bought at church by the ogress, was suspended at
the back of an old cuckoo clock.

Two marvellously ill-favoured fellows, with unshaven beards, and their
garb all in tatters, hardly tasted of the pitcher of wine before them,
and conversed together in low voices, and with uneasy aspect. One of the
two, very pale and livid, pulled, from time to time, his shabby
skull-cap over his brows, and concealed as much as possible his left
hand, and, even when compelled to use it, he did so with caution.

Further on there was a young man, hardly sixteen years of age, with
beardless chin, and a countenance wan, wrinkled, and heavy, his eye
dull, and his long black hair straggling down his neck. This youthful
rake, the emblem of precocious vice, was smoking a short black pipe. His
back was resting against the wall, and his two hands were in the pockets
of his blouse, and his legs stretched along the bench. He did not cease
smoking for a moment, unless it was to drink from a cannikin of brandy
placed before him.

The other inmates of the _tapis-franc_, men and women, presented no
remarkable characteristics. There was the ferocious or embruted
face,--the vulgar and licentious mirth; but from time to time there was
a deep and dull silence. Such were the guests of the _tapis-franc_ when
the unknown, the Chourineur, and the Goualeuse entered.

These three persons play such important parts in our recital, that we
must put them in relief.

The Chourineur was a man of lofty stature and athletic make, with hair
of a pale brown, nearly white; thick eyebrows, and enormous whiskers of
deep red. The sun's rays, misery, and the severe toil of the galleys had
bronzed his skin to that deep and olive hue which is peculiar to
convicts. In spite of his horrible nickname, his features did not
express ferocity, but a sort of coarse familiarity and irrepressible
audacity. We have said already that the Chou