Would-be paupers are as clever at mounting their disguise as shopkeepers in preparing their show-windows, or sham rich men in obtaining credit.
The floor had never been swept; the bricks had disappeared beneath layers of dirt, dust, dried mud, and any and every thing thrown down by Toupillier.

A miserable stove of cast-iron, the pipe of which entered a crumbling chimney, was the most apparent piece of furniture in this hovel.

In an alcove stood a bed, with tester and valence of green serge, which the moths had transformed into lace.

The window, almost useless, had a heavy coating of grease upon its panes, which dispensed with the necessity of curtains.

The whitewashed walls presented to the eye fuliginous tones, due to the wood and peat burned by the pauper in his stove.