She ended however, by distinguishing Madame Lorilleux--little, red-haired and tolerably strong, pulling with all the strength of her short arms, and with the assistance of a big pair of pincers, a thread of black metal which she passed through the holes of a draw-plate fixed to the vise.

Seated in front of the bench, Lorilleux, quite as small of stature, but more slender in the shoulders, worked with the tips of his pliers, with the vivacity of a monkey, at a labor so minute, that it was impossible to follow it between his scraggy fingers.

It was the husband who first raised his head--a head with scanty locks, the face of the yellow tinge of old wax, long, and with an ailing expression.
"Ah! it's you; well, well!" murmured he.

"We're in a hurry you know.
Don't come into the work-room, you'd be in our way.

Stay in the bedroom." And he resumed his minute task, his face again in the reflection of a glass globe full of green-colored water, through which the lamp shed a circle of bright light over his work.
"Take the chairs!" called out Madame Lorilleux in her turn.