Certainly that's one thing that would astound the age..."

Michel couldn't keep from laughing.

"Don't laugh, wretch, it's forbidden chez Casmodage! Look, I have a face that can break stones and an expression that would freeze the Tuileries pond in midsummer. I suppose you've heard how some American philanthropists thought up the idea of throwing their prisoners into round cells so as to deny them even the distraction of corners? Well, my boy, this society of ours is as round as those American jails! A man can gloom away his whole life—"

"But, Monsieur, " Michel interrupted, "it seems to me there's something cheerful about you—"

"Not here! Once I'm home, that's different. You come and see me! I'll play you some music—real music! The old kind!"

"Whenever you like, " Michel answered, delighted. "But I'd have to get some time off..."

"Fine! I'll say you need dictation lessons. But no more of these subversive conversations here! I'm a cog, you're a cog! Let's do our cog work and get back to the litanies of Holy Accountancy!" "Petty Cash, " Michel intoned. "Petty Cash, " Quinsonnas repeated. And their labor began again. From this day on, young Dufrénoy's existence was noticeably altered; he had a friend; he talked; he could be understood, happy as a mute who has regained the use of his tongue. The

Ledger's summits no longer seemed deserted peaks, and he had no difficulty breathing at such altitudes. Soon the two comrades indulged in the most intimate forms of address.

Quinsonnas shared with Michel all the acquisitions of his experience, and Michel, during his sleepless nights, brooded upon the disappointments of this world; each morning he returned to the offices inflamed by his thoughts of the night before and poured out his thoughts to the musician, who failed to keep him silent. Soon the Ledger was no longer under discussion. "You're going to make us commit some terrible error, " Quinsonnas kept saying, "and we'll be thrown out!"

"But I have to talk, " Michel answered.

"All right, " Quinsonnas said to him one day, "you come and have dinner at my place tonight, with my friend Jacques Aubanet. "

"At your place! But we have to get permission..."

"I've got it. Where were we?"

"Liquidations, " Michel intoned.

"Liquidations, " Quinsonnas repeated.

Chapter VII:      Three Drones

As soon as the bank closed, the two friends headed for Quinsonnas's residence, in the Rue Grange-aux-Belles; they walked arm in arm, Michel exulting in his freedom, his steps those of a conqueror.

It is a good distance from Casmodage and Co. to the Rue Grange-aux-Belles; but lodgings were hard to find in a capital too small for its five million inhabitants; enlarging public squares, opening avenues, and multiplying boulevards threatened to leave little room for private dwellings. Which justified this bromide of the period: in Paris there are no longer houses, only streets!

Some neighborhoods offered no lodging whatever to inhabitants of the capital, specifically the Ile de la Cité, where there was room only for the Bureau of Commerce, the Palace of Justice, the Prefecture of Police, the cathedral, the morgue—in other words, the means of being declared bankrupt, guilty, jailed, buried, and even rescued. Public buildings had driven out houses.

That accounted for the high cost of present-day lodgings; the Imperial Real Estate Corporation was gradually seizing all of Paris, in collusion with the government-controlled Building Company, and yielded magnificent dividends. This corporation, founded by two skillful financiers of the nineteenth century, the brothers Péreire, now also owned many of the chief cities of France, Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nantes, Strasbourg, Lille, which it had gradually rebuilt. Its shares, which had split five times, were still quoted on the Bourse at 4, 450 francs.

Poorer people reluctant to live far from the center of town therefore had to live high up; what they gained in proximity they lost in elevation—a matter of fatigue, henceforth, and not of time.

Quinsonnas lived in a twelfth-floor walk-up, an old apartment house which would have been greatly improved by elevator service. But once he was at home, the musician found himself no worse for wear.

When they reached the Rue Grange-aux-Belles, he dashed up the huge spiral staircase. "Don't think about it—just keep climbing, " he panted to Michel, who was following just behind him. "We'll get there eventually—nothing is eternal in this world, not even stairs. There!" he gasped, flinging open his door after a breathtaking ascent.

He pushed the young man into his "apartments, " a single room some fourteen meters square. "No vestibule!" he observed. "That's for people who want to keep other people waiting, and since most visitors and salespeople seem a good deal less eager to climb twelve flights than to walk down them, I do without; I've also done without a living room, which would have made the lack of a dining room too obvious. "

"It looks fine to me, " said Michel, once he had caught his breath.

"At least the air is as fresh as the ammonia of Paris mud permits. "

"It only seems small at first glance, " said Michel.

"And at second, but it'll do. "

"Besides, it's so well arranged, " Michel continued, laughing.

"Well now, you old darling, " Quinsonnas remarked to an elderly woman who came in just then, "is dinner on the way? We'll be three starving guests tonight. "

"On its way, Monsieur Quinsonnas, " replied the crone, "but you know I couldn't set the table—there is no table!"

"We'll do without, " Michel exclaimed, rather enjoying the prospect of dining on his lap.

"What do you mean, we'll do without!" interjected Quinsonnas. "Can you suppose I'd invite friends to dinner without having a table to serve it on?"

"I don't see...," began Michel, glancing dubiously around the room, which indeed contained neither table, nor bed, nor armoire, nor commode, nor chair. Not one piece of furniture, except for a good- sized piano.

"You don't see...," repeated Quinsonnas. "Well now! What about industry, that kind mother, and mechanics, that fine young lady, are you forgetting them? Here is the table as requested.