the conversation ended there.  On the return of Andre Maranne he learned the explanation of the incident.  It was very simple.  Sometimes, in the course of the day, the young ladies below, who only saw their neighbour in the evening, would inquire how things were going with him, whether any clients were coming in.  The signal he had heard meant, “Is business good to-day?” And M. Joyeuse had replied, obeying only an instinct without any knowledge, “Fairly well for the season.”  Although young Maranne was very red as he made this affirmation, M. Joyeuse accepted his word at once.  Only this idea of frequent communications between the two households made him afraid for the secrecy of his position, and from that time forward he cut himself off from what he used to call his “artistic days.”  Moreover, the moment was approaching when he would no longer be able to conceal his misfortune, the end of the month arriving, complicated by the ending of the year.

Paris was already assuming the holiday appearance which it wears during the last weeks of December.  In the way of national or popular rejoicing it had little left but that.  The follies of the Carnival died with Gavarni, the religious festivals with their peals of bells which one scarcely hears amid the noise of the streets confine themselves within their heavy church-doors, the 15th of August has never been anything but the Saint Charles-the-Great of the barracks; but Paris has maintained its observance of New Year’s Day.

From the beginning of December an immense childishness begins to permeate the town.  You see hand-carts pass laden with gilded drums, wooden horses, playthings by the dozen.  In the industrial quarters, from top to bottom of the five-storied houses, the old private residences still standing in that low-lying district, where the warehouses have such lofty ceilings and majestic double doors, the nights are passed in the making up of gauze flowers and spangles, in the gumming of labels upon satin-lined boxes, in sorting, marking, packing, the thousand details of the toy, that great branch of commerce on which Paris places the seal of its elegance.  There is a smell about of new wood, of fresh paint, glossy varnish, and, in the dust of garrets, on the wretched stairways where the poor leave behind them all the dirt through which they have passed, there lie shavings of rosewood, scraps of satin and velvet, bits of tinsel, all the debris of the luxury whose end is to dazzle the eyes of children.  Then the shop-windows are decorated.  Behind the panes of clear glass the gilt of presentation-books rises like a glittering wave under the gaslight, the stuffs of various and tempting colours display their brittle and heavy folds, while the young ladies behind the counter, with their hair dressed tapering to a point and with a ribbon beneath their collar, tie up the article, little finger in the air, or fill bags of moire into which the sweets fall like a rain of pearls.