Rich people can scarcely realize the extreme simplicity of a poor man’s kitchen.  A Dutch oven, a kettle, a gridiron, a saucepan, two or three dumpy cooking-pots, and a frying-pan—­that was all.  All the crockery in the place, white and brown earthenware together, was not worth more than twelve francs.  Dinner was served on the kitchen table, which, with a couple of chairs and a couple of stools, completed the furniture.  The stock of fuel was kept under the stove with a funnel-shaped chimney, and in a corner stood the wash-tub in which the family linen lay, often steeping over-night in soapsuds.  The nursery ceiling was covered with clothes-lines, the walls were variegated with theatrical placards and wood-cuts from newspapers or advertisements.  Evidently the eldest boy, the owner of the school-books stacked in a corner, was left in charge while his parents were absent at the theatre.  In many a French workingman’s family, so soon as a child reaches the age of six or seven, it plays the part of mother to younger sisters and brothers.

From this bare outline, it may be imagined that the Topinards, to use the hackneyed formula, were “poor but honest.”  Topinard himself was verging on forty; Mme. Topinard, once leader of a chorus—­mistress, too, it was said, of Gaudissart’s predecessor, was certainly thirty years old.  Lolotte had been a fine woman in her day; but the misfortunes of the previous management had told upon her to such an extent, that it had seemed to her to be both advisable and necessary to contract a stage-marriage with Topinard.  She did not doubt but that, as soon as they could muster the sum of a hundred and fifty francs, her Topinard would perform his vows agreeably to the civil law, were it only to legitimize the three children, whom he worshiped.  Meantime, Mme. Topinard sewed for the theatre wardrobe in the morning; and with prodigious effort, the brave couple made nine hundred francs per annum between them.

“One more flight!” Topinard had twice repeated since they reached the third floor.  Schmucke, engulfed in his sorrow, did not so much as know whether he was going up or coming down.

In another minute Topinard had opened the door; but before he appeared in his white workman’s blouse Mme. Topinard’s voice rang from the kitchen: 

“There, there! children, be quiet! here comes papa!”

But the children, no doubt, did as they pleased with papa, for the oldest member of the family, sitting astride a broomstick, continued to command a charge of cavalry (a reminiscence of the Cirque-Olympique), the second blew a tin trumpet, while the third did its best to keep up with the main body of the army.  Their mother was at work on a theatrical costume.

“Be quiet! or I shall slap you!” shouted Topinard in a formidable voice; then in an aside for Schmucke’s benefit—­“Always have to say that!—­Here, little one,” he continued, addressing his Lolotte, “this is M. Schmucke, poor M. Pons’ friend.  He does not know where to go, and he would like to live with us.  I told him that we were not very spick-and-span up here, that we lived on the sixth floor, and had only the garret to offer him; but it was no use, he would come—­”