ABSTRACT
Off Rue de Rennes, behind the Café Royal, is Rue X. It's ugly and dark and it smells. Halfway down on the right is a fancy junk shop; tom-toms, canoe paddles, shark's tooth necklaces, blue beads and yellow beads, dead kings in marble, big combs, and so forth. But the proprietor went to the States leaving his girl in charge and she never unhooked the shutters after taking up with George; all the same, they used the phone a lot.
