As he ascended higher, he became aware of a strange sound, something between the grinding of scissors and the snarling of cats.

Then a moment's silence, a loud execration, and a cry of pain.

Tantaine passed on, and coming to a rickety door, he opened it, and in another moment found himself in what the old hag downstairs had called the music-room.

The partitions of all the rooms on the floor had been roughly torn down to form this apartment; hardly a pane of glass remained intact in the windows; the dingy, whitewashed walls were covered with scrawls and drawings in charcoal.

A suffocating, nauseous odor rose up, absolutely overpowering the smell from the neighboring tanyards.