It was at the corner between the Galerie des Varietes and the Galerie Saint-Marc, an equivocal corner full of obscure little shops.

Of these last one was a shoemaker's, where customers never seemed to enter.

Then there were two or three upholsterers', deep in dust, and a smoky, sleepy reading room and library, the shaded lamps in which cast a green and slumberous light all the evening through.

There was never anyone in this corner save well-dressed, patient gentlemen, who prowled about the wreckage peculiar to a stage door, where drunken sceneshifters and ragged chorus girls congregate.

In front of the theater a single gas jet in a ground-glass globe lit up the doorway.