“I’ll not refuse, for the night is deucedly cold.”

“Don’t mention it!  This morning the water friz on my sprinkling-brush, and I turned as stiff as a mummy in my chair at the church-door.  Ah, my boy! a distributor of holy water is not always upon roses!”

“Luckily, you have the pickings—­”

“Well, well—­good luck to you!  Don’t forget the Fiver, the little passage next to the dyer’s shop.”

“Yes, yes—­all right!” and the two men separated.

One proceeded to the Cloister Square; the other towards the further end of the street, where it led into the Rue Saint-Merry.  This latter soon found the number of the house he sought—­a tall, narrow building, having, like all the other houses in the street, a poor and wretched appearance.  When he saw he was right, the man commenced walking backwards and forwards in front of the door of No. 5.

If the exterior of these buildings was uninviting, the gloom and squalor of the interior cannot be described.  The house No. 5 was, in a special degree, dirty and dilapidated.  The water, which oozed from the wall, trickled down the dark and filthy staircase.  On the second floor, a wisp of straw had been laid on the narrow landing-place, for wiping the feet on; but this straw, being now quite rotten, only served to augment the sickening odor, which arose from want of air, from damp, and from the putrid exhalations of the drains.  The few openings, cut at rare intervals in the walls of the staircase, could hardly admit more than some faint rays of glimmering light.

In this quarter, one of the most populous in Paris, such houses as these, poor, cheerless, and unhealthy, are generally inhabited by the working classes.  The house in question was of the number.  A dyer occupied the ground floor; the deleterious vapors arising from his vats added to the stench of the whole building.  On the upper stories, several artisans lodged with their families, or carried on their different trades.  Up four flights of stairs was the lodging of Frances Baudoin, wife of Dagobert.  It consisted of one room, with a closet adjoining, and was now lighted by a single candle.  Agricola occupied a garret in the roof.

Old grayish paper, broken here and there by the cracks covered the crazy wall, against which rested the bed; scanty curtains, running upon an iron rod, concealed the windows; the brick floor, not polished, but often washed, had preserved its natural color.  At one end of this room was a round iron stove, with a large pot for culinary purposes.  On the wooden table, painted yellow, marbled with brown, stood a miniature house made of iron—­a masterpiece of patience and skill, the work of Agricola Baudoin, Dagobert’s son.