etrolus. "I'm the lamp-man. Before that I was a greaser.
Is that any better? Can't say. It's here that that goes on,
look--there. My place you'll find at night by letting your nose guide
you."

The truth is that the corner of the factory to which he leads me has an
aggressive smell. The shapeless walls of this sort of grotto are
adorned with shelves full of leaking lamps--lamps dirty as beasts. In
a bucket there are old wicks and other departed things. At the foot of
a wooden cupboard which looks like iron are lamp glasses in paper
shirts; and farther away, groups of oil-drums. All is dilapidated and
ruinous; all is dark in this angle of the great building where light is
elaborated. The specter of a huge window stands yonder. The panes
only half appear; so encrusted are they they might be covered with
yellow paper. The great stones--the rocks--of the walls are
upholstered with a dark deposit of grease, like the bottom of a
stewpan, and nests of dust hang from them. Black puddles gleam on the
floor, with beds of slime from the scraping of the lamps.

There he lives and moves, in his armored tunic encrusted with filth as
dark as coffee-grounds. In his poor claw he grips the chief implement
of his work--a black rag. His grimy hands shine with paraffin, and the
oil, sunk and blackened in his nails, gives them a look of wick ends.
All day long he cleans lamps, and repairs, and unscrews, and fills, and
wipes them. The dirt and the darkness of this population of appliances
he attracts to himself, and he works like a nigger.

"For it's got to be well done," he says, "and even when you're fagged
out, you must keep on rubbing hard."

"There's six hundred and sixty-three, monsieur" (he says "monsieur" as
soon as he embarks on technical explanations), "counting the smart ones
in the fine offices, and the lanterns in the wood-yard, and the night
watchmen. You'll say to me, 'Why don't they have electricity that
lights itself?' It's 'cos that costs money and they get paraffin for
next to nothing, it seems, through a big firm 'at they're in with up
yonder. As for me, I'm always on my legs, from the morning when I'm
tired through sleeping badly, from after dinner when you feel sick with
eating, up to the evening, when you're sick of everything."

The bell has rung, and we go away in company. He has pulled off his
blue trousers and tunic and thrown them into a corner--two objects
which have grown heavy and rusty,