; but he has now learned
the art to exactitude, and butter and roll expire at the same moment.
For this refection he pays ten cents, or five pence sterling (L0, 0s.
5d.).

Half an hour later, the inhabitants of Bush Street observe the same
slender gentleman armed, like George Washington, with his little
hatchet, splitting, kindling, and breaking coal for his fire. He does
this quasi-publicly upon the window-sill; but this is not to be
attributed to any love of notoriety, though he is indeed vain of his
prowess with the hatchet (which he persists in calling an axe), and
daily surprised at the perpetuation of his fingers. The reason is this:
that the sill is a strong, supporting beam, and that blows of the same
emphasis in other parts of his room might knock the entire shanty into
hell. Thenceforth, for from three to four hours, he is engaged darkly
with an ink bottle. Yet he is not blacking his boots, for the only pair
that he possesses are innocent of lustre and wear the natural hue of the
material turned up with caked and venerable slush. The youngest child of
his landlady remarks several times a day, as this strange occupant
enters or quits the house, "Dere's de author." Can it be that this
bright-haired innocent has found the true clue to the mystery? The being
in question is, at least, poor enough to belong to that honourable
craft.

His next appearance is at the restaurant of one Donadieu, in Bush
Street, between Dupont and Kearney, where a copious meal, half a bottle
of wine, coffee and brandy may be procured for the sum of four bits,
_alias_ fifty cents, L0, 2s. 2d. sterling. The wine is put down in a
whole bottleful, and it is strange and painful to observe the greed with
which the gentleman in question seeks to secure the last drop of his
allotted half, and the scrupulousness with which he seeks to avoid
taking the first drop of the other. This is partly explained by the fact
that if he were to go over the mark--bang would go a tenpence. He is
again armed with a book, but his best friends will learn with pain that
he seems at this hour to have deserted the more serious studies of the
morning. When last observed, he was studying with apparent zest the
exploits of one Rocambole by the late Viscomte Ponson du Terrail. This
work, originally of prodigious dimensions, he had cut into liths or
thicknesses apparently for convenience of carriage.

Then the being walks, where is not certain. But by about half-past fou