have fled never to return if
a well-known figure in a white billycock and grey suit had not suddenly
advanced towards us from the direction of the staircase. In another
moment I had exchanged greetings with M. Zola, and my suspicious
scrutinisers had been introduced to me as friends. One of them was none
other than M. Fernand Desmoulin. They had arrived from Paris that
morning, and were about to sally forth with M. Zola in search of Mr.
Fletcher Moulton, Q.C., to whom they had brought a letter of introduction
from Maitre Labori.

Hence the note which M. Zola had already deposited for me at the hotel
office. Had I been a moment later I should have found them gone.

My arrival led to a change in the programme. It was resolved to begin
matters with lunch at the hotel itself, to postpone the quest for Mr.
Fletcher Moulton until the afternoon. I made, at the time, a note of our
menu. The 'bitter bread of exile' consisted on this occasion of an
omelet, fried soles, fillet of beef, and potatoes. To wash down this
anchoretic fare M. Desmoulin and myself ordered Sauterne and Apollinaris;
but the contents of the water bottle sufficed for M. Zola and the other
gentleman.

With waiters moving to and fro, nearly always within hearing, there was
little conversation at table, but we afterwards chatted in all freedom in
M. Zola's room just under the roof. Ah! that room. I have already
referred to the dingy aspect which it presented. Around Grosvenor Hotel,
encompassing its roof, runs a huge ornamental cornice, behind which are
the windows of rooms assigned, I suppose, to luggageless visitors. From
the rooms themselves there is nothing to be seen unless you throw back
your head, when a tiny patch of sky above the top line of the cornice
becomes visible. You are, as it were, in a gloomy well. The back of the
cornice, with its plaster stained and cracked, confronts your eyes; and
with a little imagination you can easily fancy yourself in a dungeon
looking into some castle moat.

'_Le fosse de Vincennes_,' so M. Zola suggested, and that summed up
everything. Yet it seemed to him very appropriate to his circumstances,
and he absolutely refused to exchange rooms with M. Desmoulin, who was
somewhat more comfortably lodged.

The appointments of M. Zola's chamber were, I remember, of a summary
description. There were few chairs, and so one of us sat on the bed. We
succeeded in procuring some black coffee, though the chambermaid regarded
t