Beneath the Surveillant were the Secretaire, Monsieur Richard, the Cook,
and the _plantons_. The first I have described sufficiently, since he was
an obedient and negative--albeit peculiarly responsible--cog in the
machine of decomposition. Of Monsieur Richard, whose portrait is included
in the account of my first day at La Ferte, I wish to say that he had a
very comfortable room of his own filled with primitive and otherwise
imposing medicines; the walls of this comfortable room being beauteously
adorned by some fifty magazine covers representing the female form in
every imaginable state of undress, said magazine-covers being taken
chiefly from such amorous periodicals as _Le Sourire_ and that old
stand-by of indecency, _La Vie Parisienne_. Also Monsieur Richard kept a
pot of geraniums upon his window-ledge, which haggard and aged-looking
symbol of joy he doubtless (in his spare moments) peculiarly enjoyed
watering. The Cook is by this time familiar to my reader. I beg to say
that I highly approve of The Cook; exclusive of the fact that the coffee,
which went up to The Enormous Room _tous les matins_, was made every day
with the same grounds plus a goodly injection of checkerberry--for the
simple reason that the Cook had to supply our captors and especially
Apollyon with real coffee, whereas what he supplied to _les hommes_ made
no difference.
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