ewise out of work during three or
four months of the year, their profession being, unfortunately, one of
those which winter condemns to a forced cessation. A number of Wolves,
in order to perfect themselves in their trade, attend every evening a
course of linear geometry, applied to the cutting of stone, analogous
to that given by M. Agricole Perdignier, for the benefit of carpenters.
Several working stone-cutters sent an architectural model in plaster to
the last exhibition.

CHAPTER VI. THE GO-BETWEEN.

A few days have elapsed since the conflagration of M. Hardy's factory.
The following scene takes place in the Rue Clovis, in the house where
Rodin had lodged, and which was still inhabited by Rose-Pompon, who,
without the least scruple, availed herself of the household arrangements
of her friend Philemon. It was about noon, and Rose-Pompon, alone in
the chamber of the student, who was still absent, was breakfasting very
gayly by the fireside; but how singular a breakfast! what a queer fire!
how strange an apartment!

Imagine a large room, lighted by two windows without curtains--for as
they looked on empty space, the lodger had fear of being overlooked.
One side of this apartment served as a wardrobe, for there was suspended
Rose-Pompon's flashy costume of debardeur, not far from the boat-man's
jacket of Philemon, with his large trousers of coarse, gray stuff,
covered with pitch (shiver my timbers!), just as if this intrepid
mariner had bunked in the forecastle of a frigate, during a voyage
round the globe. A gown of Rose Pompon's hung gracefully over a pair of
pantaloons, the legs of which seemed to come from beneath the petticoat.
On the lowest of several book-shelves, very dusty and neglected, by the
side of three old boots (wherefore three boots?) and a number of empty
bottles, stood a skull, a scientific and friendly souvenir, left to
Philemon by one of his comrades, a medical student. With a species of
pleasantry, very much to the taste of the student-world, a clay pipe
with a very black bowl was placed between the magnificently white teeth
of this skull; moreover, its shining top was half hidden beneath an
old hat, set knowingly on one side, and adorned with faded flowers
and ribbons. When Philemon was drunk, he used to contemplate this bony
emblem of mortality, and break out into the most poetical monologues,
with regard to this philosophical contrast between death and the mad
pleasures of life. Two or