tly changed?”

“Changed!”

The keeper of the wine-shop stopped to strike the wall with his

hand, and mutter a tremendous curse. No direct answer could

have been half so forcible. Mr. Lorry’s spirits grew heavier and

heavier, as he and his two companions ascended higher and

higher.

Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more

crowded parts of Paris, would be bad enough now; but, at that

time, it was vile indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses.

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Every little habitation within the great foul nest of one high

buildingthat is to say, the room or rooms within every door that

opened on the general staircaseleft its own heap of refuse on its

own landing, besides flinging other refuse from its own windows.

The uncontrollable and hopeless mass of decomposition so

engendered, would have polluted the air, even if poverty and

deprivation had not loaded it with their intangible impurities; the

two bad sources combined made it almost insupportable. Through

such an atmosphere, by a steep dark shaft of dirt and poison, the

way lay. Yielding to his own disturbance of mind, and to his young

companion’s agitation, which became greater every instant, Mr.

Jarvis Lorry twice stopped to rest. Each of these stoppages was

made at a doleful grating, by which any languishing good airs that