A CALL FROM THE RENT-SPECTRE It is nearly noon of a balmy morning late in February.

Aurore Nancanou and her daughter have only this moment ceased sewing, in the small front room of No.

19 rue Bienville.

Number 19 is the right-hand half of a single-story, low-roofed tenement, washed with yellow ochre, which it shares generously with whoever leans against it.

It sits as fast on the ground as a toad.