absinthe,--we
have thirst."

"No, no; not now, Madeleine."

"Not a drop here!" said Madame Podvin, seeing that Mlle. Fouchette was
not disposed to pay.

"Not now," interposed the latter,--"a little later. I want a word or
two with you, Madeleine, first. Just two minutes!"

The one brilliant orb regarded the girl intently, as if it would dive
into her soul; but the habitual good-nature yielded.

"Very well. Come then, cherie,--a l'imperiale!"

And, indeed, the narrow, spiral stair more closely resembled that
which leads to the imperiale of the Paris omnibus than anything found
in the modern house.

The space above was divided in four, the first part being the small
antechamber, dimly lighted from the roof, which they now entered.
Through a door to the right they were in a room one-third of which was
already occupied by an iron camp-bed. The rest of the furniture
consisted of a little iron washstand, a chair, and some sort of a box
covered with very much soiled chintz that was once pretty. Above this
latter article of furniture was a small shelf, on which were
coquettishly arranged a folding mirror and other cheap articles of
toilet. A few fans of the cheap Japanesque variety were pinned here
and there in painful regularity. A cheap holiday skirt and other
feminine belongings hung on the wall over the cot. In the small,
square, recessed window opening on Rue Mouffetard were pots of
flowering plants that gave an air of refinement and comfort to a place
otherwise cheerless and miserable.

And over all of this poverty and wretchedness hung a blackened ceiling
so low that the feather of Mlle. Fouchette swept it,--so low and dark
and heavy and lugubrious that it seemed to threaten momentarily to
crush out what little human life and happiness remained there.

Madeleine silently motioned her visitor to the chair and threw
herself on the creaking bed. She waited, suspiciously.

"The riots, you know, Madeleine," began Mlle. Fouchette.

"Dame! There is always rioting. One hears, but one doesn't mind."

"Unless one has friends, Madeleine----"

The maimed and half-drunken woman tried to straighten up.

"Well? Out with it, Fouchette. If one has friends in the row----"

"Why, then we feel an interest in our friends, n'est-ce pas?"

"It is about Lerouge!"

"Yes, Madeleine, I want----"

"Is he hurt?"

"Yes,--badly,--and is at the Hotel Dieu. I want his address. He has
moved from 7 Rue Dareau since the police--si