In every city where splendor abounds and wealth rolls in carriages, can be found, also, squalor and wretchedness. If the rich have their avenues, and the good and virtuous their sanctuaries, so have the poor their by-ways and alleys, and the vicious their haunts. In a great city there is room for all, and a place for everything.
Papa and Mamma Francoise had left their abiding-place in the slums for a refuge even more secure.
Van Vernet had followed the two women to a narrow street, long since left behind by the march of progress; a street where the huts and tumble-down frame buildings had once been reputable dwellings and stores, scattered promiscuously along on either side of a thoroughfare that had once been clean, and inhabited by modest industry. But that was many years ago: it had long been given over to dirt and disorder without, and to rags, poverty, rats and filth within. Here dwelt many foreigners, and the sound of numerous tongues speaking in many languages, might always be heard.
On this street, in the upper rooms of a rickety two-story house, Papa and Mamma Francoise had set up their household gods after their flight from the scene of Josef Siebel’s murder; the lower floor being inhabited by a family of Italians, who possessed an unlimited number of children and a limited knowledge of English.
It is evening, the evening of the day that has witnessed Van Vernet’s most recent discovery, and Papa and Mamma are at home.
The room is even more squalid than that recently occupied by them, for, besides a three-legged table, two rickety chairs, a horribly-dilapidated stove and two dirty, ragged pallets at opposite sides of the room, furniture there is none.
Perched upon one of the two rickety chairs, his thin legs extended underneath the table and his elbows resting upon it, sits Papa Francoise, lost in the contemplation of a broken glass containing a small quantity of the worst whiskey; and near him, Mamma squats upon the floor before the rusty stove, in which a brisk fire is burning, stirring vigorously at a strong-smelling decoction which is simmering over the coals.
“Come, old woman,” growls Papa, with a self-assertion probably borrowed from the broken glass under his eye, “get that stuff brewed before the gal comes in. And then try and answer my question: what’s to be done with her?”
Mamma Francoise stirs the liquid more vigorously, and takes a careful sip from the iron spoon.
“Ah,” she murmurs, “that’s the stuff. It’s a pity to spoil it.”