“Very well,” he said, moodily, “since every one wishes to get rid of me here, it is easy for me to decide. I shall leave in a week; in the meantime I do not wish to hear any more about it.” The men now adjourned to a table in the garden, neighbors came in, and to each as he entered Rondic offered a measure of wine; they smoked their pipes, and talked and laughed loudly and roughly. Jack listened to them sadly. “Must I become like these?” he said to himself, with a thrill of horror. During the evening Rondic presented the lad to the foreman of the workshops. Labescam, a heavy Cyclops, opened his eyes wide when he saw his future apprentice, dressed like a gentleman, with such dainty white hands. Jack was very delicate and girlish in his appearance. His curls were cut, to be sure, but the short hair was in crisp waves, and the air of distinction characteristic of the boy, and which so irritated D’Argenton, was more apparent in his present surroundings than in his former home. Labescam muttered that he looked like a sick chicken. “O,” said Rondic, “it is only the fatigue of his journey and these clothes that give him that look;” and then turning to his wife, the good man said, “You must find a blouse for the apprentice; and now send him to bed, he is half asleep, and to-morrow the poor lad must be up at five o’clock!” The two women took Jack into the house: it was small and of two stories, the first floor divided into two rooms—one called the parlor, which had a sofa, armchairs, and some large shells on the chimney-piece. One of the rooms above was nearly filled by a very large bed hung with damask curtains trimmed with heavy ball fringe. In Zénaïde’s room the bed was in the wall, in the old Breton style. A wardrobe of carved oak filled one side of the room; a crucifix and holy images, hung over by rosaries of all kinds, made of ivory, shells, and American corn, completed the simple arrangements. In a corner, however, stood a screen which concealed the ladder that led to the loft where the apprentice was to sleep. “This is my room,” said Zénaïde, “and you, my boy, will be up there just over my head. But never mind that; you may dance as much as you please, I sleep too soundly to be disturbed.” A lantern was given to him. He said good-night, and climbed to his loft, which even at that hour of the night was stifling. A narrow window in the roof was all there was. The dormitory at Moronval had prepared Jack for strange sleeping-places; but there he had companionship in his miseries: here he had no Mâdou, here he had nobody. The child looked about him. On the bed lay his costume for the next day; the large pantaloons of blue cloth and the blouse looked as if some person had thrown himself down exhausted with fatigue.