she had added that we should not be disturbed, that the occupant was
exceedingly quiet. In fact, for those six months, we never met our
fellow-lodger, and we never heard a sound in his room, in spite of the
thinness of the partition that divided us--one of those walls of lath
and plaster which are common in Paris houses.

Our room, a little over seven feet high, was hung with a vile cheap
paper sprigged with blue. The floor was painted, and knew nothing of
the polish given by the _frotteur's_ brush. By our beds there was only
a scrap of thin carpet. The chimney opened immediately to the roof,
and smoked so abominably that we were obliged to provide a stove at
our own expense. Our beds were mere painted wooden cribs like those in
schools; on the chimney shelf there were but two brass candlesticks,
with or without tallow candles in them, and our two pipes with some
tobacco in a pouch or strewn abroad, also the little piles of
cigar-ash left there by our visitors or ourselves.

A pair of calico curtains hung from the brass window rods, and on each
side of the window was a small bookcase in cherry-wood, such as every
one knows who has stared into the shop windows of the Quartier Latin,
and in which we kept the few books necessary for our studies.

The ink in the inkstand was always in the state of lava congealed in
the crater of a volcano. May not any inkstand nowadays become a
Vesuvius? The pens, all twisted, served to clean the stems of our
pipes; and, in opposition to all the laws of credit, paper was even
scarcer than coin.

How can young men be expected to stay at home in such furnished
lodgings? The students studied in the cafes, the theatre, the