The Complete Works of    George Orwell > Down and Out in Paris
and London > Chapter III  Down and Out in Paris and London
Chapter III  I lived in the Coq d'Or quarter for about a year
and a half. One day, realized that I must do something at once.
I decided to start looking for a job, and--very luckily, as it
turned out--I took the precaution of paying two hundred francs
for a month's rent in advance. With the other two hundred and
fifty francs, besides the English lessons, I could live a month,
and in a month I should probably find work. I aimed at becoming
a guide to one of the tourist companies, or perhaps an
interpreter. However, a piece of bad luck prevented this.  One
day there turned up at the hotel a young Italian who called
himself a compositor. He was rather an ambiguous person, for he
wore side whiskers, which are the mark either of an apache or an
intellectual, and nobody was quite certain in which class to put
him. Madame F. did not like the look of him, and made him pay a
week's rent in advance