cats and mongrels of their own households. The
obstructions caused by the former no longer aroused their ire; but when,
one evening, Romulus and Remus made their appearance, accompanied by the
legendary she-wolf, they went mad with terror. The panic was at its
height when, with an utter disregard of mythological tradition, Hercules
walked up the street, leading the Nemaean lion. Then the aid of the
police was invoked; but neither the police nor the national guards, who
came after them, dared to tackle the animals, though they might have
done so safely, because the supposed wolf was a great dane, and the lion
a mastiff, but so marvellously padded and painted as to deceive any but
the most practised eye. The culprits, however, did not reveal the secret
until they were at the commissary of police's office, enjoying the
magnificent treat of setting the whole of the neighbourhood in an uproar
on their journey thither, and of frightening that official on their
arrival.

In fact, long before I knew them, the inmates of the "Childebert" had
become a positive scourge to the neighbourhood, while the structure
itself threatened ruin to everything around it. Madame Legendre
absolutely refused to do any repairs. She did not deny that she had
bought the place cheap, but she pointed out at the same time that the
rents she charged were more than modest, and that eight times out of
ten she did not get them. In the beginning of her ownership she had
employed a male concierge, to prevent, as it were, the wholesale
flitting which was sure to follow a more strenuous application for
arrears upon which she ventured now and then in those days. That was
towards the end of the Empire, when the disciples of David had been
reduced to a minority in the place by those of Lethiere, who sounded the
first note of revolt against the unconditional classicism of the
illustrious member of the Convention. If all the disciples of the Creole
painter had not his genius, most of them had his courage and readiness
to draw the sword on the smallest provocation,[3] and the various
Cerberi employed by Madame Legendre to enforce her claims had to fly one
after another. The rumour of the danger of the situation had spread, and
at last Madame Legendre could find no man to fill it, except on monetary
conditions with which she would not--perhaps could not--comply. From
that day forth she employed a woman, who was safe, because she had been
told to let "lawless impecunio