When bedtime came he went upstairs, a little wearied by his lazy day, with the two young men whom Quenu employed as assistants, and who slept in attics adjoining his own.  Leon, the apprentice, was barely fifteen years of age.  He was a slight, gentle looking lad, addicted to stealing stray slices of ham and bits of sausages.  These he would conceal under his pillow, eating them during the night without any bread.  Several times at about one o’clock in the morning Florent almost fancied that Leon was giving a supper-party; for he heard low whispering followed by a sound of munching jaws and rustling paper.  And then a rippling girlish laugh would break faintly on the deep silence of the sleeping house like the soft trilling of a flageolet.

The other assistant, Auguste Landois, came from Troyes.  Bloated with unhealthy fat, he had too large a head, and was already bald, although only twenty-eight years of age.  As he went upstairs with Florent on the first evening, he told him his story in a confused, garrulous way.  He had at first come to Paris merely for the purpose of perfecting himself in the business, intending to return to Troyes, where his cousin, Augustine Landois, was waiting for him, and there setting up for himself as a pork butcher.  He and she had had the game godfather and bore virtually the same Christian name.  However, he had grown ambitious; and now hoped to establish himself in business in Paris by the aid of the money left him by his mother, which he had deposited with a notary before leaving Champagne.

Auguste had got so far in his narrative when the fifth floor was reached; however, he still detained Florent, in order to sound the praises of Madame Quenu, who had consented to send for Augustine Landois to replace an assistant who had turned out badly.  He himself was now thoroughly acquainted with his part of the business, and his cousin was perfecting herself in shop management.  In a year or eighteen months they would be married, and then they would set up on their own account in some populous corner of Paris, at Plaisance most likely.  They were in no great hurry, he added, for the bacon trade was very bad that year.  Then he proceeded to tell Florent that he and his cousin had been photographed together at the fair of St. Ouen, and he entered the attic to have another look at the photograph, which Augustine had left on the mantelpiece, in her desire that Madame Quenu’s cousin should have a pretty room.  Auguste lingered there for a moment, looking quite livid in the dim yellow light of his candle, and casting his eyes around the little chamber which was still full of memorials of the young girl.  Next, stepping up to the bed, he asked Florent if it was comfortable.  His cousin slept below now, said he, and would be better there in the winter, for the attics were very cold.  Then at last he went off, leaving Florent alone with the bed, and standing in front of the photograph.  As shown on the latter Auguste looked like a sort of pale Quenu, and Augustine like an immature Lisa.