Now that the lamp is alight some items become visible of the dismal
super-chaos in which we are walled up,--the piece of bed-ticking
fastened with two nails across the bottom of the window, because of
draughts; the marble-topped chest of drawers, with its woolen cover;
and the door-lock, stopped with a protruding plug of paper.

The lamp is flaring, and as Mame does not know where to stand it among
the litter, she puts it on the floor and crouches to regulate the wick.
There rises from the medley of the old lady, vividly variegated with
vermilion and night, a jet of black smoke, which returns in parachute
form. Mame sighs, but she cannot check her continual talk.

"You, my lad, you who are so genteel when you like, and earn a hundred
and eighty francs a month,--you're genteel, but you're short of good
manners, it's that chiefly I find fault with you about. So you spat on
the window-pane; I'm certain of it. May I drop dead if you didn't.
And you're nearly twenty-four! And to revenge yourself because I'd
found out that you'd spat on the window, you told me to stop my jawing,
for that's what you said to me, after all. Ah, vulgar fellow that you
are! The factory gentlemen are too kind to you. Your poor father was
their best workman. You are more genteel than your poor father, more
English; and you preferred to go into business rather than go on
learning Latin, and everybody thought you quite right; but for hard
work you're not much good--ah, la, la! Confess that you spat on the
window.

"For your poor mother," the ghost of Mame goes on, as she crosses the
room with a wooden spoon in her hand, "one must say that she had good
taste in dress. That's no harm, no; but certainly they must have the