corner of the apartment stood the bed of the metaphysician. An army of
curtains, together with a canopy a la Grecque, gave it an air at once
classic and comfortable. In the corner diagonary opposite, appeared, in
direct family communion, the properties of the kitchen and the
bibliotheque. A dish of polemics stood peacefully upon the dresser. Here
lay an ovenful of the latest ethics - there a kettle of dudecimo melanges.
Volumes of German morality were hand and glove with the gridiron - a
toasting-fork might be discovered by the side of Eusebius - Plato reclined
at his ease in the frying-pan- and contemporary manuscripts were filed
away upon the spit.

In other respects the Cafe de Bon-Bon might be said to differ little
from the usual restaurants of the period. A fireplace yawned opposite the
door. On the right of the fireplace an open cupboard displayed a
formidable array of labelled bottles.

It was here, about twelve o'clock one night during the severe winter
the comments of his neighbours upon his singular propensity - that Pierre
Bon-Bon, I say, having turned them all out of his house, locked the door
upon them with an oath, and betook himself in no very pacific mood to the
comforts of a leather-bottomed arm-chair, and a fire of blazing fagots.

It was one of those terrific nights which are only met with once or
twice during a century. It snowed fiercely, and the house tottered to its
centre with the floods of wind that, rushing through the crannies in the
wall, and pouring impetuously down the chimney, shook awfully the curtains
of the philosopher's bed, and disorganized the economy of his pate-pans
and papers. The huge folio sign that swung without, exposed to the fury of
the tempest, creaked ominously, and gave out a moaning sound from its
stanchions of solid oak.