He himself did not speak a word and his very neighbors could not have stated at what precise moment he had sat down between them; but everyone felt that if the dead did ever come and sit at the table of the living, they could not cut a more ghastly figure. The friends of Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin thought that this lean and skinny guest was an acquaintance of Debienne’s or Poligny’s, while Debienne’s and Poligny’s friends believed that the cadaverous individual belonged to Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin’s party.