My host had just left me with the friendly admonition to pay the first quarter's rent on the following day, if I did not prefer (the politeness is French) to march forth again with bag and baggage on a voyage of discovery through the streets of the city. It was just eight o'clock, on an indescribably cold November evening, when I was revived with this affectionate salutation on my return from a visit to a sick person, for whom I, perhaps--really somewhat inconsiderately, had emptied my purse. I snuffed my sleepy, thin candle with my fingers, and glanced around the little dark chamber, for the further use of which I must soon see myself compelled to gold-making. "Diogenes dwelt worse," sighed I, with a submissive mind, as I drew a lame table from the window where the wind and rain were not contented to stop outside. At that moment my eye fell upon a brilliantly blazing fire in a kitchen, which lay, Tantalus-like, directly opposite to my modest room, where the fireplace was as dark as possible. "Cooks, men and women, have the happiest lot of all serving mortals!" thought I, as, with a secret desire to play that fire-tending game, I contemplated the well-fed dame, amid iron pots and stewpans, standing there like an empress in the glory of the firelight, and with the fire-tongs sceptre rummaging about majestically in the glowing realm. A story higher, I had, through a window, which was concealed by no envious curtain, the view into a brightly lighted room, where a numerous family were assembled round a tea-table covered with cups and bread baskets.