her.

"So," said one, "you understand all about it. You are to watch in the
street, till you see them enter No. 5."

"All right!" answered the other.

"And when you see 'em enter so as to make quite sure of the game, go up
to Frances Baudoin's room--"

"Under the cloak of asking where the little humpbacked workwoman
lives--the sister of that gay girl, the Queen of the Bacchanals."

"Yes--and you must try and find out her address also--from her
humpbacked sister, if possible--for it is very important. Women of her
feather change their nests like birds, and we have lost track of her."

"Make yourself easy; I will do my best with Hump, to learn where her
sister hangs out."

"And, to give you steam, I'll wait for you at the tavern opposite the
Cloister, and we'll have a go of hot wine on your return."

"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 inh