The landlady, lazy, muscular, corpulent, and high-voiced, was expostulating with a pedler who was trying to slip out without settling.

Four other persons, slaves and peasants, were sitting on two low benches beside a small, circular table, and were busy pouring down the liquor which a young serving-boy brought them in tumbler-shaped cups, or eating greedily at loaves of coarse bread which they snatched from the table.

It was so late that little light came into the room from the door and windows.

The great fire tossed its red, flickering glow out into the apartment and cast a rosy halo over the hard brown marble pavement of the floor.

Upon the dingy walls and rafters hung from pegs flitches of bacon, sausages, and nets of vegetables.