Half the ground-floor was occupied by a book-stitcher, who for the last ten years had used the stable and coach-house for workshops.

A book-binder occupied the other half.

The binder and the stitcher lived, each of them, in half the garret rooms over the front building on the street.
The garrets above the rear wings were occupied, the one on the right by the mysterious tenant, the one on the left by Toupillier, who paid a hundred francs a year for it, and reached it by a dark staircase, lighted by small round windows.

The porte-cochere was made in the circular form indispensable in a street so narrow that two carriages cannot pass in it.
Cerizet laid hold of the rope which served as a baluster, to climb the species of ladder leading to the room where the so-called beggar was dying,--a room in which the odious spectacle of pretended pauperism was being played.

In Paris, everything that is done for a purpose is thoroughly done.