At the Sign of the Cat Racket | Page 5

was so thoroughly vexed by the time when the dormer-window of
the loft was suddenly flung open, that he did not observe the apparition
of three laughing faces, pink and white and chubby, but as vulgar as the
face of Commerce as it is seen in sculpture on certain monuments.
These three faces, framed by the window, recalled the puffy cherubs
floating among the clouds that surround God the Father. The
apprentices snuffed up the exhalations of the street with an eagerness
that showed how hot and poisonous the atmosphere of their garret must
be. After pointing to the singular sentinel, the most jovial, as he seemed,
of the apprentices retired and came back holding an instrument whose
hard metal pipe is now superseded by a leather tube; and they all
grinned with mischief as they looked down on the loiterer, and
sprinkled him with a fine white shower of which the scent proved that
three chins had just been shaved. Standing on tiptoe, in the farthest
corner of their loft, to enjoy their victim's rage, the lads ceased laughing
on seeing the haughty indifference with which the young man shook
his cloak, and the intense contempt expressed by his face as he glanced
up at the empty window-frame.
At this moment a slender white hand threw up the lower half of one of
the clumsy windows on the third floor by the aid of the sash runners, of
which the pulley so often suddenly gives way and releases the heavy
panes it ought to hold up. The watcher was then rewarded for his long

waiting. The face of a young girl appeared, as fresh as one of the white
cups that bloom on the bosom of the waters, crowned by a frill of
tumbled muslin, which gave her head a look of exquisite innocence.
Though wrapped in brown stuff, her neck and shoulders gleamed here
and there through little openings left by her movements in sleep. No
expression of embarrassment detracted from the candor of her face, or
the calm look of eyes immortalized long since in the sublime works of
Raphael; here were the same grace, the same repose as in those Virgins,
and now proverbial. There was a delightful contrast between the cheeks
of that face on which sleep had, as it were, given high relief to a
superabundance of life, and the antiquity of the heavy window with its
clumsy shape and black sill. Like those day-blowing flowers, which in
the early morning have not yet unfurled their cups, twisted by the chills
of night, the girl, as yet hardly awake, let her blue eyes wander beyond
the neighboring roofs to look at the sky; then, from habit, she cast them
down on the gloomy depths of the street, where they immediately met
those of her adorer. Vanity, no doubt, distressed her at being seen in
undress; she started back, the worn pulley gave way, and the sash fell
with the rapid run, which in our day has earned for this artless
invention of our forefathers an odious name, /Fenetre a la Guillotine/.
The vision had disappeared. To the young man the most radiant star of
morning seemed to be hidden by a cloud.
During these little incidents the heavy inside shutters that protected the
slight windows of the shop of the "Cat and Racket" had been removed
as if by magic. The old door with its knocker was opened back against
the wall of the entry by a man-servant, apparently coeval with the sign,
who, with a shaking hand, hung upon it a square of cloth, on which
were embroidered in yellow silk the words: "Guillaume, successor to
Chevrel." Many a passer-by would have found it difficult to guess the
class of trade carried on by Monsieur Guillaume. Between the strong
iron bars which protected his shop windows on the outside, certain
packages, wrapped in brown linen, were hardly visible, though as
numerous as herrings swimming in a shoal. Notwithstanding the
primitive aspect of the Gothic front, Monsieur Guillaume, of all the
merchant clothiers in Paris, was the one whose stores were always the
best provided, whose connections were the most extensive, and whose
commercial honesty never lay under the slightest suspicion. If some of

his brethren in business made a contract with the Government, and had
not the required quantity of cloth, he was always ready to deliver it,
however large the number of pieces tendered for. The wily dealer knew
a thousand ways of extracting the largest profits without being obliged,
like them, to court patrons, cringing to them, or making them costly
presents. When his fellow-tradesmen could only pay in good bills of
long date, he would mention his notary as an accommodating man, and
managed to get a second profit out of the