Christmas
logs on their fire, draw kings at play, invent April-fools, stroll on
the boulevards when the weather is fine, go to see the skating, and are
always to be found on the terrace of the Place Louis XV. at two o'clock
on the days of the fireworks, with a roll in their pockets so that they
may get and keep a front place.

The Cour Batave, where the little old man lived, is the product of one
of those fantastic speculations of which no man can explain the meaning
after they are once completed. This cloistral structure, with arcades
and interior galleries built of free-stone, with a fountain at one
end,--a parched fountain, which opens its lion's mouth less to give
water than to ask it from the passers-by,--was doubtless invented to
endow the Saint-Denis quarter with a species of Palais-Royal. The place,
unhealthy and buried on all four sides by the high walls of its houses,
has no life or movement except in the daytime; it is a central spot
where dark passages meet, and connect the quarter of the markets with
the Saint-Martin quarter by means of the famous Rue Quincampoix,--damp
ways in which hurried foot-passengers contract rheumatism. But at night
no spot in Paris is more deserted; it might be called the catacombs
of commerce. In it there are various industrial _cloaca_, very
few Dutchmen, but a great many grocers. The apartments in this
merchant-place have, naturally, no other outlook than that of the common
court on which all the windows give, so that rents are at a minimum.

Monsieur Molineux lived in one of the angles, on the sixth floor for
sanitary reasons, the air not being pure at a less height than seventy
feet above the ground. At this altitude the worthy proprietor enjoyed
an enchanting view of the windmills of Montmartre as he walked among
the gutters on the roof, where he cultivated flowers, in spite of police
regulations against the hanging gardens of our modern Babylon. His
appartement was made up of four rooms, without counting the precious
_anglaises_ on the floor above him of which he had the key; they
belonged to him, he had made them, and he felt he was legally entitled
to them. On entering his appartement, a repulsive barrenness plainly
showed the avarice of the owner: in the antechamber were six straw
chairs and a porcelain stove; on the walls, which were covered with
a bottle-green paper, were four engravings bought at auction. In the
dining-room were two sideboards, two cages full of birds