In a corner stands a box containing a set of numbered pigeon-holes, in
which the lodgers' table napkins, more or less soiled and stained with
wine, are kept. Here you see that indestructible furniture never met
with elsewhere, which finds its way into lodging-houses much as the
wrecks of our civilization drift into hospitals for incurables. You
expect in such places as these to find the weather-house whence a
Capuchin issues on wet days; you look to find the execrable engravings
which spoil your appetite, framed every one in a black varnished
frame, with a gilt beading round it; you know the sort of
tortoise-shell clock-case, inlaid with brass; the green stove, the
Argand lamps, covered with oil and dust, have met your eyes before.
The oilcloth which covers the long table is so greasy that a waggish
_externe_ will write his name on the surface, using his thumb-nail as a
style. The chairs are broken-down invalids; the wretched little hempen
mats slip away from under your feet without slipping away for good;
and finally, the foot-warmers are miserable wrecks, hingeless,
charred, broken away about the holes. It would be impossible to give
an idea of the old, rotten, shaky, cranky, worm-eaten, halt, maimed,
one-eyed, rickety, and ramshackle condition of the furniture without
an exhaustive description, which would delay the progress of the story
to an extent that impatient people would not pardon.
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