]
The room seemed to grow suddenly cold, and the faces of all the inmates
became pale; they looked more squalid than ever--the threadbare
curtains, the rheumatic chairs, the soiled floor, sashes and wallpaper.
Mr. Hugenot fumbled his shirt-bosom nervously, and his diamond pin,
glaring like a lamp upon the worn garbs and faces of his compatriots,
showed them still wanner and meaner by contrast.
"Put the blues under your feet!" cried Auburn Risque, in his hard,
practical way; "my system will resurrect the dead. You shall have
clothes upon your backs, shoes upon your feet, specie in your pockets,
blood in your veins. Let us sell, borrow and pawn; we can raise a
thousand francs together. I will return in a fortnight with fifty
thousand!"
II.
RAISING THE WIND.
The million five hundred thousand folks in Paris, who went about their
pleasures that October night, knew little of the sorrows of the Southern
Colony.
Pisgah dropped in at the Chateau des Fleurs to beg a paltry loan from
some ancient favorite. The time had been, when, after a nightly debauch,
he had placed two hundred francs in her morning's coffee-cup. It was
mournful now to mark his premature gray hairs, as, resting his soiled,
faded coat-sleeve upon her _manteau de velour_, he saw the scorn of his
poverty in the bright eyes which had smiled upon him, and made his
request so humbly and so feverishly.
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