Part 62 (2/2)

”Stop! It is Guichet himself. Let him go on, and we'll follow.”

So we dropped into the rear and followed him. He turned presently to the right, and preceded us down a long and horribly ill-favored street, full of mean cabarets and lodging-houses of the poorest cla.s.s, where, painted in red letters on broken lamps above the doors, or printed on cards wafered against the window-panes, one saw at almost every other house, the words, ”_Ici on loge la nuit_.” At the end of this thoroughfare our unconscious guide plunged into a still darker and fouler _impa.s.se_, hung across from side to side with rows of dingy linen, and ornamented in the centre with a mound of decaying cabbage-leaves, potato-parings, oyster-sh.e.l.ls, and the like. Here he made for a large tumble-down house that closed the alley at the farther end, and, still followed by ourselves, went in at an open doorway, and up a public staircase dimly lighted by a flickering oil-lamp at every landing. At his own door he paused, and just as he had turned the key, Muller accosted him.

”Is that you, Guichet?” he said. ”Why, you are the very man I want! If I had come ten minutes sooner, I should have missed you.”

”Is it M'sieur Muller?” said Guichet, bending his heavy brows and staring at us in the gloom of the landing.

”Ay, and with me the friend you saw the other day. So, this is your den?

May we come in?”

He had been standing till now with his hand on the key and the closed door at his back, evidently not intending to admit us; but thus asked, he pushed the door open, and said, somewhat ungraciously:--

”It is just that, M'sieur Muller--a den; not fit for gentlemen like you.

But you can go in, if you please.”

We did not wait for a second invitation, but went in immediately. It was a long, low, dark room, with a pale gleam of fading daylight struggling in through a tiny window at the farther end. We could see nothing at first but this gleam; and it was not till Guichet had raked out the wood ashes on the hearth, and blown them into a red glow with his breath, that we could distinguish the form or position of anything in the room.

Then, by the flicker of the fire, we saw a low truckle-bed close under the window; a kind of bruised and battered seaman's chest in the middle of the room; a heap of firewood in one corner; a pile of old packing-cases; old sail-cloth, old iron, and all kinds of rubbish in another; a few pots and pans over the fire-place; and a dilapidated stool or two standing about the room. Avoiding these latter, we set ourselves down upon the edge of the chest; while Guichet, having by this time lit a piece of candle-end in a tin sconce against the wall, stood before us with folded arms, and stared at us in silence.

”I want to know, Guichet, if you can give me some sittings,” said Muller, by way of opening the conversation.

”Depends on when, M'sieur Muller,” growled the model.

”Well--next week, for the whole week.”

Guichet shook his head. He was engaged to Monsieur Flandrin _la bas_, for the next month, from twelve to three daily, and had only his mornings and evenings to dispose of; in proof of which he pulled out a greasy note-book and showed where the agreement was formally entered.

Muller made a grimace of disappointment.

”That man's head takes a deal of cutting off, _mon ami_,” he said.

”Aren't you tired of playing executioner so long?”

”Not I, M'sieur! It's all the same to me--executioner or victim, saint or devil.”

Muller, laughing, offered him a cigar.

”You've posed for some queer characters in your time, Guichet,” said he.

”Parbleu, M'sieur!”

”But you've not been a model all your life?”

”Perhaps not, M'sieur.”

”You've been a sailor once upon a time, haven't you?”

The model looked up quickly.

”How did you know that?” he said, frowning.

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