Monsieur shook his head, and muttered something about the expense.

"There is no harm, at all events," urged madame, "in asking the price."

"My charge for gallery portraits, madame, varies from sixty to a hundred francs," said Mueller.

"Heavens! how dear! Why, my own portrait is to be only fifty."

"Sixty, Madame, if we put in the hands and the jewelry," said Mueller, blandly.

"Eh bien!—sixty. But for these other things.... bah! ils sont fierement chers."

"Pardon, madame! The elegancies and superfluities of life are, by a just rule of political economy, expensive. It is right that they should be so; as it is right that the necessaries of life should be within the reach of the poorest. Bread, for instance, is strictly necessary, and should be cheap. A great-grandfather, on the contrary, is an elegant superfluity, and may be put up at a high figure."

"There is some truth in that," murmured Monsieur Tapotte.

"Besides, in the present instance, one also pays for antiquity."

"C'est juste—C'est juste."

"At the same time," continued Mueller, "if Monsieur Tapotte were to honor me with a commission for, say, half a dozen family portraits, I would endeavor to put them in at forty francs apiece—including, at that very low price, a Revolutionary Deputy, a beauty of the Louis Quinze period, and a Marshal of France."

"Tiens! that's a fair offer enough," said madame. "What say you, mon ami?"

But Monsieur Tapotte, being a cautious man, would say nothing hastily. He coughed, looked doubtful, declined to commit himself to an opinion, and presently drew off into a corner for the purpose of holding a whispered consultation with his wife.

Meanwhile Mueller laid aside his brushes and palette, informed me with a profound bow that my lordship had honored him by sitting as long as was strictly necessary, and requested my opinion upon the progress of the work.

I praised it rapturously. You would have thought, to hear me, that for drawing, breadth, finish, color, composition, chiaroscuro, and every other merit that a painting could possess, this particular chef-d'oeuvre excelled all the masterpieces of Europe.

Mueller bowed, and bowed, and bowed, like a Chinaman at a visit of ceremony; He was more than proud; he was overwhelmed, accable, et caetera, et caetera.

The Tapottes left off whispering, and listened breathlessly.

"He is evidently a great painter, not' jeune homme!" said Madame in one of her large whispers.

To which Monsieur replied as audibly:—"Ca se voit, ma femme—sacre nom d'une pipe!"

"Milford will do me the favor to sit again on Friday?" said Mueller, as I took up my hat and gloves.

I replied with infinite condescension that I would endeavor to do so. I then made the stiffest of stiff bows to the excellent Tapottes, and, ushered to the door by Mueller, took my departure majestically in the character of Lord Smithfield.



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE QUARTIER LATIN.

The dear old Quartier Latin of my time—the Quartier Latin of Balzac, of Beranger, of Henry Murger—-the Quartier Latin where Franz Mueller had his studio; where Messieurs Gustave; Jules, and Adrien gave their unparalleled soirees dansantes; where I first met my ex-flame Josephine—exists no longer. It has been improved off the face of the earth, and with it such a gay bizarre, improvident world of youth and folly as shall never again be met together on the banks of the Seine.

Ah me! how well I remember that dingy, delightful Arcadia—the Rue de la Vieille Boucherie, narrow, noisy, crowded, with projecting upper stories and Gothic pent-house roofs—the Rue de la Parcheminerie, unchanged since the Middle Ages—the Rue St. Jacques, steep, interminable, dilapidated; with its dingy cabarets, its brasseries, its cheap restaurants, its grimy shop windows filled with colored prints, with cooked meats, with tobacco, old books, and old clothes; its ancient colleges and hospitals, time-worn and weather-beaten, frowning down upon the busy thoroughfare and breaking the squalid line of shops; its grim old hotels swarming with lodgers, floor above floor, from the cobblers in the cellars to the grisettes in the attics! Then again, the gloomy old Place St. Michel, its abundant fountain ever flowing, ever surrounded by water-carts and water-carriers, by women with pails, and bare-footed street urchins, and thirsty drovers drinking out of iron cups chained to the wall. And then, too, the Rue de la Harpe....

I close my eyes, and the strange, precipitous, picturesque, decrepit old street, with its busy, surging crowd, its street-cries, its street-music, and its indescribable union of gloom and gayety, rises from its ashes. Here, grand old dilapidated mansions with shattered stone-carvings, delicate wrought-iron balconies all rust-eaten and broken, and windows in which every other pane is cracked or patched, alternate with more modern but still more ruinous houses, some leaning this way, some that, some with bulging upper stories, some with doorways sunk below the level of the pavement. Yonder, gloomy and grim, stands the College of Saint Louis. Dark alleys open off here and there from the main thoroughfare, and narrow side streets, steep as flights of steps. Low sheds and open stalls cling, limpet-like, to every available nook and corner. An endless procession of trucks, wagons, water-carts, and fiacres rumbles perpetually by. Here people live at their windows and in the doorways—the women talking from balcony to balcony, the men smoking, reading, playing at dominoes. Here too are more cafes and cabarets, open-air stalls for the sale of fried fish, and cheap restaurants for workmen and students, where, for a sum equivalent to sevenpence half-penny English, the Quartier Latin regales itself upon meats and drinks of dark and enigmatical origin. Close at hand is the Place and College of the Sorbonne—silent in the midst of noisy life, solitary in the heart of the most crowded quarter of Paris. A sombre mediaeval gloom pervades that ancient quadrangle; scant tufts of sickly grass grow here and there in the interstices of the pavement; the dust of centuries crust those long rows of windows never opened. A little further on is the Rue des Gres, narrow, crowded, picturesque, one uninterrupted perspective of bookstalls and bookshops from end to end. Here the bookseller occasionally pursues a two-fold calling, and retails not only literature but a cellar of petit vin bleu; and here, overnight, the thirsty student exchanges for a bottle of Macon the "Code Civile" that he must perforce buy back again at second-hand in the morning.

A little farther on, and we come to the College Saint Louis, once the old College Narbonne; and yet a few yards more, and we are at the doors of the Theatre du Pantheon, once upon a time the Church of St. Benoit, where the stage occupies the site of the altar, and an orchestra stall in what was once the nave, may be had for seventy-five centimes. Here, too, might be seen the shop of the immortal Lesage, renowned throughout the Quartier for the manufacture of a certain kind of transcendental ham-patty, peculiarly beloved by student and grisette; and here, clustering within a stone's throw of each other, were to be found those famous restaurants, Pompon, Viot, Flicoteaux, and the "Boeuf Enrage," where, on gala days, many an Alphonse and Fifine, many a Theophile and Cerisette, were wont to hold high feast and festival—terms sevenpence half-penny each, bread at discretion, water gratis, wine and toothpicks extra.

But it was in the side streets, courts, and impasses that branched off to the left and right of the main arteries, that one came upon the very heart of the old Pays Latin; for the Rue St. Jacques, the Rue de la Harpe, the Rue des Gres, narrow, steep, dilapidated though they might be, were in truth the leading thoroughfares—the Boulevards, so to speak—of the Student Quartier. In most of the side alleys, however, some of which dated back as far, and farther, than the fifteenth century, there was no footway for passengers, and barely space for one wheeled vehicle at a time. A filthy gutter invariably flowed down the middle of the street. The pavement, as it peeped out here and there through a moraine of superimposed mud and offal, was seen to consist of small oblong stones, like petrified kidney potatoes. The houses, some leaning this way, some that, with projecting upper stories and overhanging gable-roofs, nodded together overhead, leaving but a narrow strip of sky down which the sunlight strove in vain to struggle. Long poles upon which were suspended old clothes hung out to air, and ragged linen to dry, stood out like tattered banners from the attic windows. Here, too, every ground-floor was a shop, open, unglazed, cavernous, where the dealer lay perdu in the gloom of midday, like a spider in the midst of his web, surrounded by piles of old bottles, old iron, old clothes, old furniture, or whatever else his stock in trade might consist of.

Of such streets—less like streets, indeed, than narrow, overhanging gorges and ravines of damp and mouldering stone—of such streets, I say, intricate, winding, ill-lighted, unventilated, pervaded by an atmosphere compounded of the fumes of fried fish, tobacco, old leather, mildew and dirt, there were hundreds in the Quartier Latin of my time:—streets to the last degree unattractive as places of human habitation, but rich, nevertheless, in historic associations, in picturesque detail, and in archaeological interest. Such a street, for instance, was the Rue du Fouarre (scarcely a feature of which has been modernized to this day), where Dante, when a student of theology in Paris, attended the lectures of one Sigebert, a learned monk of Gemblours, who discoursed to his scholars in the open air, they sitting round him the while upon fresh straw strewn upon the pavement. Such a street was the Rue des Cordiers, close adjoining the Rue des Gres, where Rousseau lived and wrote; and the Rue du Dragon, where might then be seen the house of Bernard Palissy; and the Rue des Macons, where Racine lived; and the Rue des Marais, where Adrienne Lecouvreur—poor, beautiful, generous, ill-fated Adrienne Lecouvreur!—died. Here, too, in a blind alley opening off the Rue St. Jacques, yet stands part of that Carmelite Convent in which, for thirty years, Madame de la Valliere expiated the solitary frailty of her life. And so at every turn! Not a gloomy by-street, not a dilapidated fountain, not a grim old college facade but had its history, or its legend. Here the voice of Abelard thundered new truths, and Rabelais jested, and Petrarch discoursed with the doctors. Here, in the Rue de l'Ancienne Comedie, walked the shades of Racine, of Moliere, of Corneille, of Voltaire. Dear, venerable, immortal old Quartier Latin! Thy streets were narrow, but they were the arteries through which, century after century, circulated all the wisdom and poetry, all the art, and science, and learning of France! Their gloom, their squalor, their very dirt was sacred. Could I have had my will, not a stone of the old place should have been touched, not a pavement widened, not a landmark effaced.

Then beside, yet not apart from, all that was mediaeval and historic in the Pays Latin, ran the gay, effervescent, laughing current of the life of the jeunessed' aujour d'hui. Here beat the very heart of that rare, that immortal, that unparalleled vie de Boheme, the vagabond poetry of which possesses such an inexhaustible charm for even the soberest imagination. What brick and mortar idylls, what romances au cinquieme, what joyous epithalamiums, what gay improvident menages, what kisses, what laughter, what tears, what lightly-spoken and lightly-broken vows those old walls could have told of!

Here, apparelled in all sorts of unimaginable tailoring, in jaunty colored cap or flapped sombrero, his pipe dangling from his button-hole, his hair and beard displaying every eccentricity under heaven, the Paris student, the Pays Latiniste pur sang, lived and had his being. Poring over the bookstalls in the Place du Pantheon or the Rue des Gres—hurrying along towards this or that college with a huge volume under each arm, about nine o'clock in the morning—haunting the cafes at midday and the restaurants at six—swinging his legs out of upper windows and smoking in his shirt-sleeves in the summer evenings—crowding the pit of the Odeon and every part of the Theatre du Pantheon—playing wind instruments at dead of night to the torment of his neighbors, or, in vocal mood, traversing the Quartier with a society of musical friends about the small hours of the morning—getting into scuffles with the gendarmes—flirting, dancing, playing billiards and the deuce; falling in love and in debt; dividing his time between Aristotle and Mademoiselle Mimi Pinson ... here, and here only, in all his phases, at every hour of the day and night, he swarmed, ubiquitous.

And here, too (a necessary sequence), flourished the fair and frail grisette. Her race, alas! is now all but extinct—the race of Fretillon, of Francine, of Lisette, Musette, Rosette, and all the rest of that too fascinating terminology—the race immortalized again and again by Beranger, Gavarni, Balzac, De Musset; sketched by a hundred pencils and described by a hundred pens; celebrated in all manner of metres and set to all manner of melodies; now caricatured and now canonized; now painted wholly en noir and now all couleur de rose; yet, however often described, however skilfully analyzed, remaining for ever indescribable, and for ever defying analysis!

"De tous les produits Parisiens," says Monsieur Jules Janin (himself the quintessence of everything most Parisian), "le produit le plus Parisien, sans contredit, c'est la grisette." True; but our epigrammatist should have gone a step farther. He should have added that the grisette pur sang is to be found nowhere except in Paris; and (still a step farther) nowhere in Paris save between the Pont Neuf and the Barriere d'Enfer. There she reigns; there (ah! let me use the delicious present tense—let me believe that I still live in Arcadia!)—there she lights up the old streets with her smile; makes the old walls ring with her laughter; flits over the crossings like a fairy; wears the most coquettish of little caps and the daintiest of little shoes; rises to her work with the dawn; keeps a pet canary; trains a nasturtium round her window; loves as heartily as she laughs, and almost as readily; owes not a sou, saves not a centime; sews on Adolphe's buttons, like a good neighbor; is never so happy as when Adolphe in return takes her to Tivoli or the Jardin Turc; adores galette, sucre d'orge, and Frederick Lemaitre; and looks upon a masked ball and a debardeur dress as the summit of human felicity.

Vive la grisette! Shall I not follow many an illustrious example and sing my modest paean in her praise? Frown not, august Britannia! Look not so severely askance upon my poor little heroine of the Quartier Latin! Thinkest thou because thou art so eminently virtuous that she who has many a serviceable virtue of her own, shall be debarred from her share in this world's cakes and ale?

Vive la grisette! Let us think and speak no evil of her. "Elle ne tient au vice que par un rayon, et s'en eloigne par les mille autres points de la circonference sociale." The world sees only her follies, and sees them at first sight; her good qualities lie hidden in the shade. Is she not busy as a bee, joyous as a lark, helpful, pitiful, unselfish, industrious, contented? How often has she not slipped her last coin into the alms-box at the hospital gate, and gone supperless to bed? How often sat up all night, after a long day's toil in a crowded work-room, to nurse Victorine in the fever? How often pawned her Sunday gown and shawl, to redeem that coat without which Adolphe cannot appear before the examiners to-morrow morning? Granted, if you will, that she has an insatiable appetite for sweets, cigarettes, and theatrical admissions—shall she not be welcome to her tastes? And is it her fault if her capacity in the way of miscellaneous refreshments partakes of the nature of the miraculous—somewhat to the inconvenience of Adolphe, who has overspent his allowance? Supposing even that she may now and then indulge (among friends) in a very modified can-can at the Chaumiere—what does that prove, except that her heels are as light as her heart, and that her early education has been somewhat neglected?

But I am writing of a world that has vanished as completely as the lost Pleiad. The Quartier Latin of my time is no more. The Chaumiere is no more. The grisette is fast dying out. Of the Rue de la Harpe not a recognisable feature is left. The old Place St. Michel, the fountain, the Theatre du Pantheon, are gone as if they had never been. Whole streets, I might say whole parishes, have been swept away—whole chapters of mediaeval history erased for ever.

Well, I love to close my eyes from time to time, and evoke the dear old haunts from their ruins; to descend once more the perilous steeps of the Rue St. Jacques, and to thread the labyrinthine by-streets that surround the Ecole de Medecine. I see them all so plainly! I look in at the familiar print-shops—I meet many a long-forgotten face—I hear many a long-forgotten voice—I am twenty years of age and a student again!

Ah me! what a pleasant time, and what a land of enchantment! Dingy, dilapidated, decrepit as it was, that graceless old Quartier Latin, believe me, was paved with roses and lighted with laughing gas.



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FETE AT COURBEVOIE.

"Halte la! I thought I should catch you about this time! They've been giving you unconscionable good measure to-day, though, haven't they? I thought Bollinet's lecture was always over by three; and here I've been moralizing on the flight of Time for more than twenty minutes."

So saying, Mueller, having stopped me as I was coming down the steps of the Hotel Dieu, linked his arm in mine, drew me into a shady angle under the lee of Notre Dame, and, without leaving me time to reply, went on pouring out his light, eager chatter as readily as a mountain-spring bubbles out its waters.

"I thought you'd like to know about the Tapottes, you see—and I was dying to tell you. I went to your rooms last night between eight and nine, and you were out; so I thought the only sure way was to come here—I know you never miss Bollinet's Lectures. Well, as I was saying, the Tapottes.... Oh, mon cher! I am your debtor for life in that matter of Milord Smithfield. It has been the making of me. What do you think? Tapotte is not only going to sit for a companion half-length to Madame's portrait, but he has given me a commission for half-a-dozen ancestors. Fancy—half-a-dozen illustrious dead-and-done Tapottes! What a scope for the imagination! What a bewildering vista of billets de banque! I feel—ah, mon ami! I feel that the wildest visions of my youth are about to be realized, and that I shall see my tailor's bill receipted before I die!"

"I'm delighted," said I, "that Tapotte has turned up a trump card."

"A trump card? Say a California—a Pactolus—a Golden Calf. Nay, hath not Tapotte two golden calves? Is he not of the precious metal all compact? Stands he not, in the amiable ripeness of his years, a living representative of the Golden Age? 'O bella eta dell' oro!'"

And to my horror, he then and there executed a frantic pas seul.

"Gracious powers!" I exclaimed. "Are you mad?"

"Yes—raving mad. Have you any objection?"

"But, my dear fellow—in the face of day—in the streets of Paris! We shall get taken up by the police!"

"Then suppose we get out of the streets of Paris? I'm tired enough, Heaven knows, of cultivating the arid soil of the Pave. See, it's a glorious afternoon. Let's go somewhere."

"With all my heart. Where?"

"Ah, mon Dieu! ca m'est egal. Enghien—Vincennes—St. Cloud—Versailles ... anywhere you like. Most probably there's a fete going on somewhere, if we only knew where,"

"Can't we find out?"

"Oh, yes—we can drop into a Cafe and look at the Petites Affiches; only that entails an absinthe; or we can go into the nearest Omnibus Bureau and see the notices on the walls, which will be cheaper."

So we threaded our way along the narrow thoroughfares of the Ile de la Cite, and came presently to an Omnibus Bureau on the Quai de l'Horloge, overlooking the Pont Neuf and the river. Here the first thing we saw was a flaming placard setting forth the pleasures and attractions of the great annual fete at Courbevoie; a village on the banks of the Seine, a mile or two beyond Neuilly.

"Voila, notre affaire!" said Mueller, gaily. "We can't do better than steer straight for Courbevoie."

Saying which, he hailed a passing fiacre and bade the coachman drive to the Embarcadere of the Rive Droite.

"We shall amuse ourselves famously at Courbevoie," he said, as we rattled over the stones. "We'll dine at the Toison d'Or—an excellent little restaurant overlooking the river; and if you're fond of angling, we can hire a punt and catch our own fish for dinner. Then there will be plenty of fiddling and dancing at the guingettes and gardens in the evening. By the way, though, I've no money! That is to say, none worth speaking of—voila!... one franc, one piece of fifty centimes, another of twenty centimes, and some sous. I hope your pockets are better lined than mine."

"Not much, I fear," I replied, pulling out my porte-monnaie, and emptying the contents into my hand. They amounted to nine francs and seventy-five centimes.

"Parbleu! we've just eleven francs and a half between us," said Mueller. "A modest sum-total; but we must make it as elastic as we can. Let me see, there'll be a franc for the fiacre, four francs for our return tickets, four for our dinner, and two and a half to spend as we like in the fair. Well, we can't commit any great extravagance with that amount of floating capital."

"Better turn back and go to my rooms for some more money?" I exclaimed. "I've two Napoleons in my desk."

"No, no—we should miss the three-fifty train, and not get another till between five and six."

"But we shall have no fun if we have no money!"

"I dissent entirely from that proposition, Monsieur Englishman. I have always had plenty of fun, and I have been short of cash since the hour of my birth. Come, it shall be my proud task to-day to prove to you the pleasures of impecuniosity!"

So with our eleven francs and a half we went on to the station, and took our places for Courbevoie.

We travelled, of course, by third class in the open wagons; and it so happened that in our compartment we had the company of three pretty little chattering grisettes, a fat countrywoman with a basket, and a quiet-looking elderly female with her niece. These last wore bonnets, and some kind of slight mourning. They belonged evidently to the small bourgeoise class, and sat very quietly in the corner of the carriage, speaking to no one. The three grisettes, however, kept up an incessant fire of small talk and squabble.

"I was on this very line last Sunday," said one. "I went with Julie to Asnieres, and we were so gay! I wonder if it will be very gay at Courbevoie."

"Je m'en doute," replied another, whom they called Lolotte. "I came to one of the Courbevoie fetes last spring, and it was not gay at all. But then, to be sure, I was with Edouard, and he is as dull as the first day in Lent. Where were you last Sunday, Adele?"

"I did not go beyond the barriers. I went to the Cirque with my cousin, and we dined in the Palais Royal. We enjoyed ourselves so much! You know my cousin?"

"Ah! yes—the little fellow with the curly hair and the whiskers, who waits for you at the corner when we leave the workshop."

"The same—Achille."

"Your Achille is nice-looking," said Mademoiselle Lolotte, with a somewhat critical air. "It is a pity he squints."

"He does not squint, mam'selle."

"Oh, ma chere! I appeal to Caroline."

"I am not sure that he actually squints," said Mam'selle Caroline, speaking for the first time; "but he certainly has one eye larger than the other, and of quite a different color."

"Tiens, Caroline—it seems to me that you look very closely into the eyes of young men," exclaims Adele, turning sharply upon this new assailant.

"At all events you admit that Caroline is right," cries Lolotte, triumphantly.

"I admit nothing of the kind. I say that you are both very ill-natured, and that you say what is not true. As for you, Lolotte, I don't believe you ever had the chance of seeing a young man's eyes turned upon you, or you would not be so pleased with the attentions of an old one."

"An old one!" shrieked Mam'selle Lolotte. "Ah, mon Dieu! Is a man old at forty-seven? Monsieur Durand is in the prime of life, and there isn't a girl in the Quartier who would not be proud of his attentions!"

"He's sixty, if an hour," said the injured Adele. "And as for you, Caroline, who have never had a beau in your life...."

"Ciel! what a calumny!—I—never had a ... Holy Saint Genevieve! why, it was only last Thursday week...."

Here the train stopped at the Asnieres station, and two privates of the Garde Imperiale got into the carriage. The horizon cleared as if by magic. The grisettes suddenly forgot their differences, and began to chat quite amicably. The soldiers twirled their mustachios, listened, smiled, and essayed to join in the conversation. In a few minutes all was mirth and flirtation.

Meanwhile Mueller was casting admiring glances on the young girl in the corner, whilst the fat countrywoman, pursing up her mouth, and watching the grisettes and soldiers, looked the image of offended virtue.

"Dame! Madame," she said, addressing herself to the old lady in the bonnet, "girls usen't to be so forward in the days when you and I were young!"

To which the old lady in the bonnet, blandly smiling, replied:—

"Beautiful, for the time of year."

"Eh? For the time of year? Dame! I don't see that the time of year has anything to do with it," exclaimed the fat countrywoman.

Here the young girl in the corner, blushing and smiling very sweetly, interposed with—"Pardon, Madame—my aunt is somewhat deaf. Pray, excuse her."

Whereupon the old lady, watching the motion of her niece's lips, added—

"Ah, yes—yes! I am a poor, deaf old woman—I don't understand what you say. Talk to my little Marie, here—she can answer you."

"I, for one, desire nothing better than permission to talk to Mademoiselle," said Mueller, gallantly.

"Mais, Monsieur..."

"Mademoiselle, with Madame her aunt, are going to the fete at Courbevoie?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

"The river is very pretty thereabouts, and the walks through the meadows are delightful."

"Indeed, Monsieur!"

"Mademoiselle does not know the place?"

"No, Monsieur."

"Ah, if I might only be permitted to act as guide! I know every foot of the ground about Courbevoie."

Mademoiselle Marie blushed again, looked down, and made no reply.

"I am a painter," continued Mueller; "and I have sketched all the windings of the Seine from Neuilly to St. Germains. My friend here is English—he is a student of medicine, and speaks excellent French."

"What is the gentleman saying, mon enfant?" asked the old lady, somewhat anxiously.

"Monsieur says that the river is very pretty about Courbevoie, ma tante," replied Mademoiselle Marie, raising her voice.

"Ah! ah! and what else?"

"Monsieur is a painter."

"A painter? Ah, dear me! it's an unhealthy occupation. My poor brother Pierre might have been alive to this day if he had taken to any other line of business! You must take great care of your lungs, young man. You look delicate."

Mueller laughed, shook his head, and declared at the top of his voice that he had never had a day's illness in his life.

Here the pretty niece again interposed.

"Ah, Monsieur," she said, "my aunt does not understand....My—my uncle Pierre was a house-painter."

"A very respectable occupation, Mademoiselle," replied Mueller, politely. "For my own part, I would sooner paint the insides of some houses than the outsides of some people."

At this moment the train began to slacken pace, and the steam was let off with a demoniac shriek.

"Tiens, mon enfant," said the old lady, turning towards her niece with affectionate anxiety. "I hope you have not taken cold."

The excellent soul believed that it was Mademoiselle Marie who sneezed.

And now the train had stopped—the porters were running along the platform, shouting "Courbevoie! Courbevoie!"—the passengers were scrambling out en masse—and beyond the barrier one saw a confused crowd of charrette and omnibus-drivers, touters, fruit-sellers, and idlers of every description. Mueller handed out the old lady and the niece; the fat countrywoman scrambled up into a kind of tumbril driven by a boy in sabots; the grisettes and soldiers walked off together; and the tide of holiday-makers, some on foot, some in hired vehicles, set towards the village. In the meanwhile, what with the crowd on the platform and the crowd outside the barrier, and what with the hustling and pushing at the point where the tickets were taken, we lost sight of the old lady and her niece.

"What the deuce has become of ma tante?" exclaimed Mueller, looking round.

But neither ma tante nor Mademoiselle Marie were anywhere to be seen. I suggested that they must have gone on in the omnibus or taken a charrette, and so have passed us unperceived.

"And, after all," I added, "we didn't want to enter upon an indissoluble union with them for the rest of the day. Ma tante's deafness is not entertaining, and la petite Marie has nothing to say."

"La petite Marie is uncommonly pretty, though," said Mueller. "I mean to dance a quadrille with her by-and-by, I promise you."

"A la bonne heure! We shall be sure to chance upon them again before long."

We had come by this time to a group of pretty villa-residences with high garden walls and little shady side-lanes leading down to the river. Then came a church and more houses; then an open Place; and suddenly we found ourselves in the midst of the fair.

It was just like any other of the hundred and one fetes that take place every summer in the environs of Paris. There was a merry-go-round and a greasy pole; there was a juggler who swallowed knives and ribbons; there were fortune-tellers without number; there were dining-booths, and drinking-booths, and dancing-booths; there were acrobats, organ-boys with monkeys, and Savoyards with white mice; there were stalls for the sale of cakes, fruit, sweetmeats, toys, combs, cheap jewelry, glass, crockery, boots and shoes, holy-water vessels, rosaries, medals, and little colored prints of saints and martyrs; there were brass bands, and string bands, and ballad-singers everywhere; and there was an atmosphere compounded of dust, tobacco-smoke, onions, musk, and every objectionable perfume under heaven.

"Dine at the Restaurant de l'Empire, Messieurs," shouted a shabby touter in a blouse, thrusting a greasy card into our faces. "Three dishes, a dessert, a half-bottle, and a band of music, for one franc-fifty. The cheapest dinner in the fair!"

"The cheapest dinner in the fair is at the Belle Gabrielle!" cried another. "We'll give you for the same money soup, fish, two dishes, a dessert, a half-bottle, and take your photograph into the bargain!"

"Bravo! mon vieux—you first poison them with your dinner, and then provide photographs for the widows and children," retorts touter number one. "That's justice, anyhow."

Whereupon touter number two shrieks out a torrent of abuse, and we push on, leaving them to settle their differences after their own fashion.

At the next booth we are accosted by a burly fellow daubed to the eyes with red and blue paint, and dressed as an Indian chief.

"Entrez, entrez, Messieurs et Mesdames" he cries, flourishing a war-spear some nine feet in length. "Come and see the wonderful Peruvian maiden of Tanjore, with webbed fingers and toes, her mouth in the back of her head, and her eyes in the soles of her feet! Only four sous each, and an opportunity that will never occur again!"

"Only fifty centimes!" shouts another public orator; "the most ingenious little machine ever invented! Goes into the waistcoat pocket—is wound up every twenty-four hours—tells the day of the month, the day of the year, the age of the moon, the state of the Bourse, the bank rate of discount, the quarter from which the wind is blowing, the price of new-laid eggs in Paris and the provinces, the rate of mortality in the Fee-jee islands, and the state of your sweetheart's affections!"

A little further on, by dint of much elbowing, we made our way into a crowded booth where, for the modest consideration of two sous per head, might be seen a Boneless Youth and an Ashantee King. The performances were half over when we went in. The Boneless Youth had gone through his feats of agility, and was lying on a mat in a corner of the stage, the picture of limp incapability. The Ashantee monarch was just about to make his appearance. Meanwhile, a little man in fleshings and a cocked hat addressed the audience.

"Messieurs and Mesdames—I have the honor to announce that Caraba Radokala, King of Ashantee, will next appear before you. This terrific native sovereign was taken captive by that famous Dutch navigator, the Mynheer Van Dunk, in his last voyage round the globe. Van Dunk, having brought his prisoner to Europe in an iron cage, sold him to the English government in 1840; who sold him again to Milord Barnum, the great American philanthropist, in 1842; who sold him again to Franconi of the Cirque Olympique; who finally sold him to me. At the time of his capture, Caraba Radokala was the most treacherous, barbarous, and sanguinary monster upon record. He had three hundred and sixty-five wives—a wife, you observe, for every day in the year. He lived exclusively upon human flesh, and consumed, when in good health, one baby per diem. His palace in Ashantee was built entirely of the skulls and leg-bones of his victims. He is now, however, much less ferocious; and, though he feeds on live pigeons, rabbits, dogs, mice, and the like, he has not tasted human flesh since his captivity. He is also heavily ironed. The distinguished company need therefore entertain no apprehensions. Pierre—draw the bolt, and let his majesty loose!"

A savage roar was now heard, followed by a rattling of chains. Then the curtains were suddenly drawn back, and the Ashantee king—crowned with a feather head-dress, loaded with red and blue war-paint, and chained from ankle to ankle—bounded on the stage.

Seeing the audience before him, he uttered a terrific howl. The front rows were visibly agitated. Several young women faintly screamed.

The little man in the cocked hat rushed to the front, protesting that the ladies had no reason to be alarmed. Caraba Radokala, if not wantonly provoked, was now quite harmless—a little irritable, perhaps, from being waked too suddenly—would be as gentle as a lamb, if given something to eat:—"Pierre, quiet his majesty with a pigeon!"

Pierre, a lank lad in motley, hereupon appeared with a live pigeon, which immediately escaped from his hands and perched on the top of the proscenium. Caraba Radokala yelled; the little man in the cocked hat raved; and Pierre, in default of more pigeons, contritely reappeared with a lump of raw beef, into which his majesty ravenously dug his royal teeth. The pigeon, meanwhile, dressed its feathers and looked complacently down, as if used to the incident.

"Having fed, Caraba Radokala will now be quite gentle and good-humored," said the showman. "If any lady desires to shake hands with him, she may do so with perfect safety. Will any lady embrace the opportunity?"

A faint sound of tittering was heard in various parts of the booth; but no one came forward.

"Will no lady be persuaded? Well, then, is there any gentleman present who speaks Ashantee?"

Mueller gave me a dig with his elbow, and started to his feet.

"Yes," he replied, loudly. "I do."

Every head was instantly turned in our direction.

The showman collapsed with astonishment. Even the captive, despite his ignorance of the French tongue, looked considerably startled.

"Comment!" stammered the cocked hat. "Monsieur speaks Ashantee?"

"Fluently."

"Is it permitted to inquire how and when monsieur acquired this very unusual accomplishment?"

"I have spoken Ashantee from my infancy," replied Mueller, with admirable aplomb. "I was born at sea, brought up in an undiscovered island, twice kidnapped by hostile tribes before attaining the age of ten years, and have lived among savage nations all my life."

A murmur of admiration ran through the audience, and Mueller became, for the time, an object of livelier interest than Caraba Radokala himself. Seeing this, the indignant monarch executed a warlike pas, and rattled his chains fiercely.

"In that case, monsieur, you had better come upon the stage, and speak to his majesty," said the showman reluctantly.

"With all the pleasure in life."

"But I warn you that his temper is uncertain."

"Bah!" said Mueller, working his way round through the crowd, "I'm not afraid of his temper."

"As monsieur pleases—but, if monsieur offends him, I will not be answerable for the consequences."

"All right—give us a hand up, mon vieux!" And Muller, having clambered upon the stage, made a bow to the audience and a salaam to his majesty.

"Chickahominy chowdar bang," said he, by way of opening the conversation.

The ex-king of Ashantee scowled, folded his arms, and maintained a haughty silence.

"Hic hac horum, high cockalorum," continued Mueller, with exceeding suavity.

The captive monarch stamped impatiently, ground his teeth, but still made no reply.

"Monsieur had better not aggravate him," said the showman. "On the contrary—I am overwhelming him with civilities Now observe—I condole with him upon his melancholy position. I inquire after his wives and children; and I remark how uncommonly well he is looking."

And with this, he made another salaam, smiled persuasively, and said—

"Alpha, beta, gamma, delta—chin-chin—Potz tausend!—Erin-go-bragh!"

"Borriobooloobah!" shrieked his majesty, apparently stung to desperation.

"Rocofoco!" retorted Mueller promptly.

But as if this last was more than any Ashantee temper could bear, Caraba Rodokala clenched both his fists, set his teeth hard, and charged down upon Mueller like a wild elephant. Being met, however, by a well-planted blow between the eyes, he went down like a ninepin—picked himself up,—rushed in again, and, being forcibly seized and held back by the cocked hat, Pierre of the pigeons, and a third man who came tumbling up precipitately from somewhere behind the stage, vented his fury, in a torrent of very highly civilized French oaths.

"Eh, sacredieu!" he cried, shaking his fist in Mueller's face, "I've not done with you yet, diable de galerien!"

Whereupon there burst forth a general roar—a roar like the "inextinguishable laughter" of Olympus.

"Tiens!" said Mueller, "his majesty speaks French almost as well as I speak Ashantee!"

"Bourreau! Brigand! Assassin!" shrieked his Ferocity, as his friends hustled him off the stage.

The curtains then fell together again; and the audience, still laughing vociferously, dispersed with cries of "Vive Caraba Rodokala!" "Kind remembrances to the Queens of Ashantee!" "What's the latest news from home?" "Borriobooloo-bah—ah—ah!"

Elbowing our way out with the crowd, we now plunged once more into the press of the fair. Here our old friends the dancing dogs of the Champs Elysees, and the familiar charlatan of the Place du Chatelet with his chariot and barrel-organ, transported us from Ashantee to Paris. Next we came to a temporary shooting-gallery, adorned over the entrance with a spirited cartoon of a Tyrolean sharpshooter; and then to an exhibition of cosmoramas; and presently to a weighing machine, in which a great, rosy-cheeked, laughing Normandy peasant girl, with her high cap, blue skirt, massive gold cross and heavy ear-rings, was in the act of being weighed.

"Tiens! Mam'selle est joliment solide!" remarks a saucy bystander, as the owner of the machine piles on weight after weight.

"Perhaps if I had no more brains than m'sieur, I should weigh as light!" retorts the damsel, with a toss of her high cap.

"Pardon! it is not a question of brains—it is a question of hearts," interposes an elderly exquisite in a white hat. "Mam'selle has captured so many that she is completely over weighted."

"Twelve stone six ounces," pronounces the owner of the machine, adjusting the last weight.

Whereupon there is a burst of ironical applause, and the big paysanne, half laughing, half angry, walks off, exclaiming, "Eh bien! tant mieux! I've no mind to be a scarecrow—moi!"

By this time we have both had enough of the fair, and are glad to make our way out of the crowd and down to the riverside. Here we find lovers strolling in pairs along the towing-path; family groups pic-nicking in the shade; boats and punts for hire, and a swimming-match just coming off, of which all that is visible are two black heads bobbing up and down along the middle of the stream.

"And now, mon ami, what do you vote for?" asks Mueller. "Boating or fishing? or both? or neither?"

"Both, if you like—but I never caught anything in my life,"

"The pleasure of fishing, I take it," says Mueller, "is not in the fish you catch, but in the fish you miss. The fish you catch is a poor little wretch, worth neither the trouble of landing, cooking, nor eating; but the fish you miss is always the finest fellow you ever saw in your life!"

"Allons donc! I know, then, which of us two will have most of the pleasure to-day," I reply, laughing. "But how about the expense?"

To which Mueller, with a noble recklessness, answers:—

"Oh, hang the expense! Here, boatman! a boat a quatre rames, and some fishing-tackle—by the hour."

Now it was undoubtedly a fine sentiment this of Mueller's, and had we but fetched my two Napoleons before starting, I should have applauded it to the echo; but when I considered that something very nearly approaching to a franc had already filtered out of our pockets in passing through the fair, and that the hour of dinner was looming somewhat indefinitely in the distance, I confess that my soul became disquieted within me.

"Don't forget, for heaven's sake," I said, "that we must keep something for dinner!"

"My dear fellow," he replied, "I have already a tremendous appetite for dinner—that is something."

After this, I resigned myself to whatever might happen.

We then rowed up the river for about a mile beyond Courbevoie. moored our boat to a friendly willow, put our fishing-tackle together, and composed ourselves for the gentle excitement that waits upon the gudgeon and the minnow.

"I haven't yet had a single nibble," said Mueller, when we had been sitting to our work for something less than ten minutes.

"Hush!" I said. "You mustn't speak, you know."

"True—I had forgotten. I'll sing instead. Fishes, I have been told, are fond of music.

'Fanfan, je vous aimerais bien; Contre vous je n'ai nul caprice; Vous etes gentil, j'en convien....'"

"Come, now!" I exclaimed pettishly, "this is really too bad. I had a bite—a most decided bite—and if you had only kept quiet"....

"Nonsense, my dear fellow! I tell you again—and I have it on the best authority—fishes like music. Did you never hear of Arion! Have you forgotten about the Syrens? Believe me, your gudgeon nibbled because I sang him to the surface—just as the snakes come out for the song of the snake-charmer. I'll try again!"

And with this he began:—

"Jeannette est une brune Qui demeure a Pantin, Ou toute sa fortune Est un petit jardin!"

"Well, if you go on like that, all I have to say is, that not a fish will come within half a mile of our bait," said I, with tranquil despair.

"Alas! mon cher, I am grieved to observe in your otherwise estimable character, a melancholy want of faith," replied Mueller "Without faith, what is friendship? What is angling? What is matrimony? Now, I tell you that with regard to the finny tribe, the more I charm them, the more enthusiastically they will flock to be caught. We shall have a miraculous draught in a few minutes, if you are but patient."

And then he began again:—

"Mimi Pinson est une blonde, Une blonde que l'on connait. Elle n'a qu'une robe au monde, Landerirette! Et qu'un bonnet."

I laid aside my rod, folded my arms, and when he had done, applauded ironically.

"Very good," I said. "I understand the situation. We are here, at some—indeed, I may say, considering the state of our exchequer, at a considerable mutual expense; not to catch fish, but to afford Herr Mueller an opportunity of exercising his extensive memory, and his limited baritone voice. The entertainment is not without its agrements, but I find it dear at the price."

"Tiens, Arbuthnot! let us fish seriously. I promise not to open my lips again till you have caught something."

"Then, seriously, I believe you would have to be silent the whole night, and all I should catch would be the rheumatism. I am the worst angler in the world, and the most unlucky."

"Really and truly?"

"Really and truly. And you?"

"As bad as yourself. If a tolerably large and energetic fish did me the honor to swallow my bait, the probability is that he would catch me. I certainly shouldn't know what to do with him."

"Then the present question is—what shall we do with ourselves?"

"I vote that we row up as far as yonder bend in the river, just to see what lies beyond; and then back to Courbevoie."

"Heaven only grant that by that time we shall have enough money left for dinner!" I murmured with a sigh.

We rowed up the river as far as the first bend, a distance of about half a mile; and then we rowed on as far as the next bend. Then we turned, and, resting on our oars, drifted slowly back with the current. The evening was indescribably brilliant and serene. The sky was cloudless, of a greenish blue, and full of light. The river was clear as glass. We could see the flaccid water-weeds swaying languidly with the current far below, and now and then a shoal of tiny fish shooting along half-way between the weeds and the surface. A rich fringe of purple iris, spear-leaved sagittarius, and tufted meadow-sweet (each blossom a bouquet on a slender thyrsus) bordered the towing-path and filled the air with perfume. Here the meadows lay open to the water's edge; a little farther on, they were shut off by a close rampart of poplars and willows whose leaves, already yellowed by autumn, were now fiery in the sunset. Joyous bands of gnats, like wild little intoxicated maenads, circled and hummed about our heads as we drifted slowly on; while, far away and mellowed by distance, we heard the brazen music of the fair.

We were both silent. Mueller pulled out a small sketch-book and made a rapid study of the scene—the reach in the river; the wooded banks; the green flats traversed by long lines of stunted pollards; the church-tops and roofs of Courbevoie beyond.

Presently a soft voice, singing, broke upon the silence. Mueller stopped involuntarily, pencil in hand. I held my breath, and listened. The tune was flowing and sweet; and as our boat drifted on, the words of the singer became audible.

"O miroir ondoyant! Je reve en te voyant Harmonie et lumiere, O ma riviere, O ma belle riviere!

"On voit se reflechir Dans ses eaux les nuages; Elle semble dormir Entre les paturages

Ou paissent les grands boeufs Et les grasses genisses. Au patres amoureux Que ses bords sont propices!"

"A woman's voice," said Mueller. "Dupont's words and music. She must be young and pretty ... where has she hidden herself?"

The unseen singer, meanwhile, went on with another verse.

"Pres des iris du bord, Sous une berge haute, La carpe aux reflets d'or Ou le barbeau ressaute, Les goujons font le guet, L'Ablette qui scintille Fuit le dent du brochet; Au fond rampe l'anguille!

"O miroir ondoyant! Je reve en te voyant Harmonic et lumiere, O ma riviere, O ma belle riviere!"

"Look!" said Mueller. "Do you not see them yonder—two women under the trees? By Jupiter! it's ma tante and la petite Marie!"

Saying which, he flung himself upon his oars and began pulling vigorously towards the shore.



CHAPTER XXV.

THAT TERRIBLE MUeLLER.

La petite Marie broke off at the sound of our oars, and blushed a becoming rose-color.

"Will these ladies do us the honor of letting us row them back to Courbevoie?" said Mueller, running our boat close in against the sedges, and pulling off his hat as respectfully as if they were duchesses.

Mademoiselle Marie repeated the invitation to her aunt, who accepted it at once.

"Tres volontiers, tres volontiers, messieurs" she said, smiling and nodding. "We have rambled out so far—so far! And I am not as young as I was forty years ago. Ah, mon Dieu! how my old bones ache! Give me thy hand, Marie, and thank the gentlemen for their politeness."

So Mam'selle Marie helped her aunt to rise, and we steadied the boat close under the bank, at a point where the interlacing roots of a couple of sallows made a kind of natural step by means of which they could easily get down.

"Oh, dear! dear! it will not turn over, will it, my dear young man? Ciel! I am slipping ... Ah, Dieu, merci!—Marie, mon cher enfant, pray be careful not to jump in, or you will upset us all!"

And ma tante, somewhat tremulous from the ordeal of embarking, settled down in her place, while Mueller lifted Mam'selle Marie into the boat, as if she had been a child. I then took the oars, leaving him to steer; and so we pursued our way towards Courbevoie.

"Mam'selle has of course seen the fair?" said Mueller, from behind the old lady's back.

"No, monsieur,"

"No! Is it possible?"

"There was so much crowd, monsieur, and such a noise ... we were quite too much afraid to venture in."

"Would you be afraid, mam'selle, to venture with me?"

"I—I do not know, monsieur."

"Ah, mam'selle, you might be very sure that I would take good care of you!"

"Mais ... monsieur"...

"These gentlemen, I see, have been angling," said the old lady, addressing me very graciously. "Have you caught many fish?"

"None at all, madame!" I replied, loudly.

"Tiens! so many as that?"

"Pardon, madame," I shouted at the top of my voice. "We have caught nothing—nothing at all."

Ma tante smiled blandly.

"Ah, yes," she said; "and you will have them cooked presently for dinner, n'est-ce pas? There is no fish so fresh, and so well-flavored, as the fish of our own catching."

"Will madame and mam'selle do us the honor to taste our fish and share our modest dinner?" said Mueller, leaning forward in his seat in the stern, and delivering his invitation close into the old lady's ear.

To which ma tante, with a readiness of hearing for which no one would have given her credit, replied:—

"But—but monsieur is very polite—if we should not be inconveniencing these gentlemen"....

"We shall be charmed, madame—we shall be honored!"

"Eh bien! with pleasure, then—Marie, my child, thank the gentlemen for their amiable invitation."

I was thunderstruck. I looked at Mueller to see if he had suddenly gone out of his senses. Mam'selle Marie, however, was infinitely amused.

"Fi donc! monsieur," she said. "You have no fish. I heard the other gentleman say so."

"The other gentleman, mam'selle," replied Mueller, "is an Englishman, and troubled with the spleen. You must not mind anything he says."

Troubled with the spleen! I believe myself to be as even-tempered and as ready to fall in with a joke as most men; but I should have liked at that moment to punch Franz Mueller's head. Gracious heavens! into what a position he had now brought us! What was to be done? How were we to get out of it? It was now just seven; and we had already been upon the water for more than an hour. What should we have to pay for the boat? And when we had paid for the boat, how much money should we have left to pay for the dinner? Not for our own dinners—ah, no! For ma tante's dinner (and ma tante had a hungry eye) and for la petite Marie's dinner; and la petite Marie, plump, rosy, and well-liking, looked as if she might have a capital appetite upon occasion! Should we have as much as two and a half francs? I doubted it. And then, in the absence of a miracle, what could we do with two and a half francs, if we had them? A miserable sum!—convertible, perhaps, into as much bouilli, bread and cheese, and thin country wine as might have satisfied our own hunger in a prosaic and commonplace way; but for four persons, two of them women!...

And this was not the worst of it. I thought I knew Mueller well enough by this time to feel that he would entirely dismiss this minor consideration of ways and means; that he would order the dinner as recklessly as if we had twenty francs apiece in our pockets; and that he would not only order it, but eat it and preside at it with all the gayety and audacity in life.

Then would come the horrible retribution of the bill!

I felt myself turn red and hot at the mere thought of it.

Then a dastardly idea insinuated itself into my mind. I had my return-ticket in my waistcoat-pocket:—what if I slipped away presently to the station and went back to Paris by the next train, leaving my clever friend to improvise his way out of his own scrape as best he could?

In the meanwhile, as I was rowing with the stream, we soon got back to Courbevoie.

"Are you mad?" I said, as, having landed the ladies, Mueller and I delivered up the boat to its owner.

"Didn't I admit it, two or three hours ago?" he replied. "I wonder you don't get tired, mon cher, of asking the same question so often."

"Four francs, fifty centimes, Messieurs," said the boatman, having made fast his boat to the landing-place.

"Four francs, fifty centimes!" I echoed, in dismay.

Even Mueller looked aghast.

"My good fellow," he said, "do you take us for coiners?"

"Hire of boat, two francs the hour. These gentlemen have been out nearly one hour and a half—three francs. Hire of bait and fishing-tackle, one franc fifty. Total, four francs and a half," replied the boatman, putting out a great brown palm.

Mueller, who was acting as cashier and paymaster, pulled out his purse, deposited one solitary half-franc in the middle of that brown palm, and suggested that the boatman and he should toss up for the remaining four francs—or race for them—or play for them—or fight for them. The boatman, however, indignantly rejected each successive proposal, and, being paid at last, retired with a decrescendo of oaths.

"Tiens!" said Mueller, reflectively. "We have but one franc left. One franc, two sous, and a centime. Vive la France!"

"And you have actually asked that wretched old woman and her niece to dinner!"

"And I have actually solicited that excellent and admirable woman, Madame Marotte, relict of the late lamented Jacques Marotte, umbrella maker, of number one hundred and two, Rue du Faubourg St. Denis, and her beautiful and accomplished niece, Mademoiselle Marie Charpentier, to honor us with their company this evening. Dis-donc, what shall we give them for dinner?"

"Precisely what you invited them to, I should guess—the fish we caught this afternoon."

"Agreed. And what else?"

"Say—a dish of invisible greens, and a phoenix a la Marengo."

"You are funny, mon cher."

"Then, for fear I should become too funny—good afternoon."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I have no mind to dine first, and be kicked out of doors afterwards. It is one of those aids to digestion that I can willingly dispense with."

"But if I guarantee that the dinner shall be paid for—money down!"

"Tra la la!"

"You don't believe me? Well, come and see."

With this, he went up to Madame Marotte, who, with her niece, had sat down on a bench under a walnut-tree close by, waiting our pleasure.

"Would not these ladies prefer to rest here, while we seek for a suitable restaurant and order the dinner?" said Mueller insinuatingly.

The old lady looked somewhat blank. She was not too tired to go on—thought it a pity to bring us all the way back again—would do, however, as "ces messieurs" pleased; and so was left sitting under the walnut-tree, reluctant and disconsolate.

"Tiens! mon enfant" I heard her say as we turned away, "suppose they don't come back again!"

We had promised to be gone not longer, than twenty minutes, or at most half an hour. Mueller led the way straight to the Toison d' Or.

I took him by the arm as we neared the gate.

"Steady, steady, mon gaillard" I said. "We don't order our dinner, you know, till we've found the money to pay for it."

"True—but suppose I go in here to look for it?"

"Into the restaurant garden?"

"Precisely."



CHAPTER XXVI.

THE PETIT COURIER ILLUSTRE.

THE Toison d' Or was but a modest little establishment as regarded the house, but it was surrounded on three sides by a good-sized garden overlooking the river. Here, in the trellised arbors which lined the lawn on either side, those customers who preferred the open air could take their dinners, coffees, and absinthes al fresco.

The scene when we arrived was at its gayest. There were dinners going on in every arbor; waiters running distractedly to and fro with trays and bottles; two women, one with a guitar, the other with a tamborine, singing under a tree in the middle of the garden; while in the air there reigned an exhilarating confusion of sounds and smells impossible to describe.

We went in. Mueller paused, looked round, captured a passing waiter, and asked for Monsieur le proprietaire. The waiter pointed over his shoulder towards the house, and breathlessly rushed on his way.

Mueller at once led the way into a salon on the ground-floor looking over the garden.

Here we found ourselves in a large low room containing some thirty or forty tables, and fitted up after the universal restaurant pattern, with cheap-looking glasses, rows of hooks, and spittoons in due number. The air was heavy with the combined smells of many dinners, and noisy with the clatter of many tongues. Behind the fruits, cigars, and liqueur bottles that decorated the comptoir sat a plump, black-eyed little woman in a gorgeous cap and a red silk dress. This lady welcomed us with a bewitching smile and a gracious inclination of the head.

"Ces messieurs," she said, "will find a vacant table yonder, by the window."

Mueller bowed majestically.

"Madame," he said, "I wish to see Monsieur le proprietaire."

The dame de comptoir looked very uneasy.

"If Monsieur has any complaint to make," she said, "he can make it to me."

"Madame, I have none."

"Or if it has reference to the ordering of a dinner...."

Mueller smiled loftily.

"Dinner, Madame," he said, with a disdainful gesture, "is but one of the accidents common to humanity. A trifle! A trifle always humiliating—sometimes inconvenient—occasionally impossible. No, Madame, mine is a serious mission; a mission of the highest importance, both socially and commercially. May I beg that you will have the goodness to place my card in the hands of Monsieur le proprietaire, and say that I request the honor of five minutes' interview."

The little woman's eyes had all this time been getting rounder and blacker. She was evidently confounded by my friend's grandiloquence.

"Ah! mon Dieu! M'sieur," she said, nervously, "my husband is in the kitchen. It is a busy day with us, you understand—but I will send for him."

And she forthwith despatched a waiter for "Monsieur Choucru."

Mueller seized me by the arm.

"Heavens!" he exclaimed, in a very audible aside, "did you hear? She is his wife! She is Madame Choucru?"

"Well, and what of that?"

"What of that, indeed? Mais, mon ami, how can you ask the question? Have you no eyes? Look at her! Such a remarkably handsome woman—such a tournure—such eyes—such a figure for an illustration! Only conceive the effect of Madame Choucru—in medallion!"

"Oh, magnificent!" I replied. "Magnificent—in medallion."

But I could not, for the life of me, imagine what he was driving at.

"And it would make the fortune of the Toison d'Or" he added, solemnly.

To which I replied that it would undoubtedly do so.

Monsieur Choucru now came upon the scene; a short, rosy, round-faced little man in a white flat cap and bibbed apron—like an elderly cherub that had taken to cookery. He hung back upon the threshold, wiping his forehead, and evidently unwilling to show himself in his shirt-sleeves.

"Here, mon bon," cried Madame, who was by this time crimson with gratified vanity, and in a fever of curiosity; "this way—the gentleman is waiting to speak to you!"

Monsieur, the cook and proprietor, shuffled his feet to and fro in the doorway, but came no nearer.

"Parbleu!" he said, "if M'sieur's business is not urgent."

"It is extremely urgent, Monsieur Choucru," replied Mueller; "and, moreover, it is not so much my business as it is yours,"

"Ah bah! if it is my business, then, it may stand over till to-morrow," replied the little man, impatiently. "To-day I have eighty dinners on hand, and with M'sieur's permission"....

But Mueller strode to the door and caught him by the shoulder.

"No, Monsieur Choucru," he said sternly, "I will not let you ruin yourself by putting off till to-morrow what can only be done to-day. I have come here, Monsieur Choucru, to offer you fame. Fame and fortune, Monsieur Choucru!—and I will not suffer you, for the sake of a few miserable dinners, to turn your back upon the most brilliant moment of your life!"

"Mais, M'sieur—explain yourself" ... stammered the proprietaire.

"You know who I am, Monsieur Choucru?"

"No, M'sieur—not in the least."

"I am Mueller—Franz Mueller—landscape painter, portrait painter, historical painter, caricaturist, artist en chef to the Petit Courier Illustre"

"Hein! M'sieur est peintre!"

"Yes, Monsieur Choucru—and I offer you my protection."

Monsieur Choucru scratched his ear, and smiled doubtfully.

"Now listen, Monsieur Choucru—I am here to-day in the interests of the Petit Courier Illustre. I take the Courbevoie fete for my subject. I sketch the river, the village, the principal features of the-scene; and on Saturday my designs are in the hands of all Paris. Do you understand me?"

"I understand that M'sieur is all this time talking to me of his own business, while mine, la bas, is standing still!" exclaimed the proprietaire, in an agony of impatience. "I have the honor to wish M'sieur good-day."

But Mueller seized him again, and would not let him escape.

"Not so fast, Monsieur Choucru," he said; "not so fast! Will you answer me one question before you go?"

"Eh, mon Dieu! Monsieur."

"Will you tell me, Monsieur Choucru, what is to prevent me from giving a view of the best restaurant in Courbevoie?"

Madame Choucru, from behind the comptoir, uttered a little scream.

"A design in the Petit Courier Illustre, I need scarcely tell you," pursued Mueller, with indescribable pomposity, "is in itself sufficient to make the fortune not only of an establishment, but of a neighborhood. I am about to make Courbevoie the fashion. The sun of Asnieres, of Montmorency, of Enghien has set—the sun of Courbevoie is about to rise. My sketches will produce an unheard-of effect. All Paris will throng to your fetes next Sunday and Monday—all Paris, with its inexhaustible appetite for bifteck aux pommes frites—all Paris with its unquenchable thirst for absinthe and Bavarian beer! Now, Monsieur Choucru, do you begin to understand me?"

"Mais, Monsieur, I—I think...."

"You think you do, Monsieur Choucru? Very good. Then will you please to answer me one more question. What is to prevent me from conferring fame, fortune, and other benefits too numerous to mention on your excellent neighbor at the corner of the Place—Monsieur Coquille of the Restaurant Croix de Malte?"

Monsieur Choucru scratched his ear again, stared helplessly at his wife, and said nothing. Madame looked grave.

"Are we to treat this matter on the footing of a business transaction, Monsieur!" she asked, somewhat sharply. "Because, if so, let Monsieur at once name his price for me...."

"'PRICE,' Madame!" interrupted Mueller, with a start of horror. "Gracious powers! this to me—to Franz Mueller of the Petit Courier Illustre! 'No, Madame—you mistake me—you wound me—you touch the honor of the Fine Arts! Madame, I am incapable of selling my patronage."

Madame clasped her hands; raised her voice; rolled her black eyes; did everything but burst into tears. She was shocked to have offended Monsieur! She was profoundly desolated! She implored a thousand pardons! And then, like a true French-woman of business, she brought back the conversation to the one important point:—since money was not in question, upon what consideration would Monsieur accord his preference to the Toison d' Or instead of to the Croix de Malte?

Mueller bowed, laid his hand upon his heart, and said:—

"I will do it, pour les beaux yeux de Madame."

And then, in graceful recognition of the little man's rights as owner of the eyes in question, he bowed to Monsieur Choucru.

Madame was inexpressibly charmed. Monsieur smiled, fidgeted, and cast longing glances towards the door.

"I have eighty dinners on hand," he began again, "and if M'sieur will excuse me...."

"One moment more, my dear Monsieur Choucru," said Mueller, slipping his hand affectionately through the little man's arm. "For myself, as I have already told you, I can accept nothing—but I am bound in honor not to neglect the interests of the journal I represent. You will of course wish to express your sense of the compliment paid to your house by adding your name to the subscription list of the Petit Courier Illustre?"

"Oh, by—by all means—with pleasure," faltered the proprietaire.

"For how many copies, Monsieur Choucru? Shall we say—six?"

Monsieur looked at Madame. Madame nodded. Mueller took out his pocket-book, and waited, pencil in hand.

"Eh—parbleu!—let it be for six, then," said Monsieur Choucru, somewhat reluctantly.

Mueller made the entry, shut up the pocket-book, and shook hands boisterously with his victim.

"My dear Monsieur Choucru," he said, "I cannot tell you how gratifying this is to my feelings, or with what disinterested satisfaction I shall make your establishment known to the Parisian public. You shall be immortalized, my dear fellow—positively immortalized!"

"Bien oblige, M'sieur—bien oblige. Will you not let my wife offer you a glass of liqueure?"

"Liqueure, mon cher!" exclaimed Mueller, with an outburst of frank cordiality—"hang liqueure!—WE'LL DINE WITH YOU!"

"Monsieur shall be heartily welcome to the best dinner the Toison d'Or can send up; and his friend also," said Madame, with her sweetest smile.

"Ah, Madame!"

"And M'sieur Choucru shall make you one of his famous cheese souffles. Tiens, mon bon, go down and prepare a cheese souffle for two."

Mueller smote his forehead distractedly.

"For two!" he cried. "Heavens! I had forgotten my aunt and my cousin!"

Madame looked up inquiringly.

"Monsieur has forgotten something?"

"Two somethings, Madame—two somebodies! My aunt—my excellent and admirable maternal aunt,—and my cousin. We left them sitting under a tree by the river-side, more than half an hour ago. But the fault, Madame, is yours."

"How, Monsieur?"

"Yes; for in your charming society I forget the ties of family and the laws of politeness. But I hasten to fetch my forgotten relatives. With what pleasure they will share your amiable hospitality! Au revoir, Madame. In ten minutes we shall be with you again!"

Madame Choucru looked grave. She had not bargained to entertain a party of four; yet she dared not disoblige the Petit Courier Illustre. She had no time, however, to demur to the arrangement; for Mueller, ingeniously taking her acquiescence for granted, darted out of the room without waiting for an answer.

"Miserable man!" I exclaimed, as soon as we were outside the doors, "what will you do now?"

"Do! Why, fetch my admirable maternal aunt and my interesting cousin, to be sure."

"But you have raised a dinner under false pretences!"

"I, mon cher? Not a bit of it."

"Have you, then, really anything to do with the Petit Courier Illustre?"

"The Editor of the Petit Courier Illustre is one of the best fellows in the world, and occasionally (when my pockets represent that vacuum which Nature very properly abhors) he advances me a couple of Napoleons. I wipe out the score from time to time by furnishing a design for the paper. Now to-day, you see, I'm in luck. I shall pay off two obligations at once—to say nothing of Monsieur Choucru's six-fold subscription to the P.C., on which the publishers will allow me a douceur of thirty francs. Now, confess that I'm a man of genius!"

In less than a quarter of an hour we were all four established round one of Madame Choucru's comfortable little dining-tables, in a snug recess at the farthest end of the salon. Here, being well out of reach of our hostess's black eyes, Mueller assumed all the airs of a liberal entertainer. He hung up ma cousine's bonnet; fetched a footstool for ma tante; criticised the sauces; presided over the wine; cut jokes with the waiter; and pretended to have ordered every dish beforehand. The stewed kidneys with mushrooms were provided especially for Madame Marotte; the fricandeau was selected in honor of Mam'selle Marie (had he not an innate presentiment that she loved fricandeau?); and as for the soles au gratin, he swore, in defiance of probability and all the laws of nature, that they were the very fish we had just caught in the Seine. By-and-by came Monsieur Choucru's famous cheese souffle; and then, with a dish of fruit, four cups of coffee, and four glasses of liqueure, the banquet came to an end.

As we sat at desert, Mueller pulled out his book and pencilled a rapid but flattering sketch of the dining-room interior, developing a perspective as long as the Rue de Rivoli, and a mobilier at least equal in splendor to that of the Trois Freres.

At sight of this chef d'oeuvre, Madame Choucru was moved almost to tears. Ah, Heaven! if Monsieur could only figure to himself her admiration for his beau talent! But alas! that was impossible—as impossible as that Monsieur Choucru should ever repay this unheard-of obligation!

Mueller laid his hand upon his heart, and bowed profoundly.

"Ah! Madame," he said, "it is not to Monsieur Choucru that I look for repayment—it is to you."

"To me, Monsieur? Dieu merci! Monsieur se moque de moi!"

And the Dame de Comptoir, intrenched behind her fruits and liqueure bottles, shot a Parthian glance from under her black eye-lashes, and made believe to blush.

"Yes, Madame, to you. I only ask permission to come again very soon, for the purpose of executing a little portrait of Madame—a little portrait which, alas! must fail to render adequate justice to such a multitude of charms."

And with this choice compliment, Mueller bowed again, took his leave, bestowed a whole franc upon the astonished waiter, and departed from the Toison d'Or in an atmosphere of glory.

The fair, or rather that part of the fair where the dancers and diners most did congregate, was all ablaze with lights, and noisy with brass bands as we came out. Ma tante, who was somewhat tired, and had been dozing for the last half hour over her coffee and liqueure, was impatient to get back to Paris. The fair Marie, who was not tired at all, confessed that she should enjoy a waltz above everything. While Mueller, who professed to be an animated time-table, swore that we were just too late for the ten minutes past ten train, and that there would be no other before eleven forty-five. So Madame Marotte was carried off, bon gre, mal gre, to a dancing-booth, where gentlemen were admitted on payment of forty centimes per head, and ladies went in free.

Here, despite the noise, the dust, the braying of an abominable band, the overwhelming smell of lamp-oil, and the clatter, not only of heavy walking-boots, but even of several pairs of sabots upon an uneven floor of loosely-joined planks—ma tante, being disposed of in a safe corner, went soundly to sleep.

It was a large booth, somewhat over-full; and the company consisted mainly of Parisian blue blouses, little foot-soldiers, grisettes (for there were grisettes in those days, and plenty of them), with a sprinkling of farm-boys and dairy-maids from the villages round about. We found this select society caracoling round the booth in a thundering galop, on first going in. After the galop, the conductor announced a valse a deux temps. The band struck up—one—two—three. Away went some thirty couples—away went Mueller and the fair Marie—and away went the chronicler of this modest biography with a pretty little girl in green boots who waltzed remarkably well, and who deserted him in the middle of the dance for a hideous little French soldier about four feet and a half high.

After this rebuff (having learned, notwithstanding my friend's representations to the contrary, that a train ran from Courbevoie to Paris every half-hour up till midnight) I slipped away, leaving Mueller and ma cousine in the midst of a furious flirtation, and Madame Marotte fast asleep in her corner.

The clocks were just striking twelve as I passed under the archway leading to the Cite Bergere.

"Tiens!" said the fat concierge, as she gave me my key and my candle. "Monsieur has perhaps been to the theatre this evening? No!—to the country—to the fete at Courbevoie! Ah, then, I'll be sworn that M'sieur has had plenty of fun!"

But had I had plenty of fun? That was the question. That Mueller had had plenty of flirting and plenty of fun was a fact beyond the reach of doubt. But a flirtation, after all, unless in a one-act comedy, is not entertaining to the mere looker-on; and oh! must not those bridesmaids who sometimes accompany a happy couple in their wedding-tour, have a dreary time of it?



CHAPTER XXVII.

THE ECOLE DE NATATION.

It seemed to me that I had but just closed my eyes, when I was waked by a hand upon my shoulder, and a voice calling me by my name. I started up to find the early sunshine pouring in at the window, and Franz Mueller standing by my bedside.

"Tiens!" said he. "How lovely are the slumbers of innocence! I was hesitating, mon cher, whether to wake or sketch you."

I muttered something between a growl and a yawn, to the effect that I should have been better satisfied if he had left me alone.

"You prefer everything that is basely self-indulgent, young man," replied Mueller, making a divan of my bed, and coolly lighting his pipe under my very nose. "Contrary to all the laws of bon-camaraderie, you stole away last night, leaving your unprotected friend in the hands of the enemy. And for what?—for the sake of a few hours' ignominious oblivion! Look at me—I have not been to bed all night, and I am as lively as a lobster in a lobster-pot."

"How did you get home?" I asked, rubbing my eyes; "and when?"

"I have not got home at all yet," replied my visitor. "I have come to breakfast with you first."

Just at this moment, the pendule in the adjoining room struck six.

"To breakfast!" I repeated. "At this hour?—you who never breakfast before midday!"

"True, mon cher; but then you see there are reasons. In the first place, we danced a little too long, and missed the last train, so I was obliged to bring the dear creatures back to Paris in a fiacre. In the second place, the driver was drunk, and the horse was groggy, and the fiacre was in the last stage of dilapidation. The powers below only know how many hours we were on the road; for we all fell asleep, driver included, and never woke till we found ourselves at the Barriere de l'Etoile at the dawn of day."

"Then what have you done with Madame Marotte and Mademoiselle Marie?"

"Deposited them at their own door in the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis, as was the bounden duty of a preux chevalier. But then, mon cher, I had no money; and having no money, I couldn't pay for the fiacre; so I drove on here—and here I am—and number One Thousand and Eleven is now at the door, waiting to be paid."

"The deuce he is!"

"So you see, sad as it was to disturb the slumbers of innocence, I couldn't possibly let you go on sleeping at the rate of two francs an hour."

"And what is the rate at which you have waked me?"

"Sixteen francs the fare, and something for the driver—say twenty in all."

"Then, my dear fellow, just open my desk and take one of the two Napoleons you will see lying inside, and dismiss number One Thousand and Eleven without loss of time; and then...."

"A thousand thanks! And then what?"

"Will you accept a word of sound advice?"

"Depends on whether it's pleasant to follow, caro mio"

"Go home; get three or four hours' rest; and meet me in the Palais Royal about twelve for breakfast."

"In order that you may turn round and go to sleep again in comfort? No, young man, I will do nothing of the kind. You shall get up, instead, and we'll go down to Molino's."

"To Molino's?"

"Yes—don't you know Molino's—the large swimming-school by the Pont Neuf. It's a glorious morning for a plunge in the Seine."

A plunge in the Seine! Now, given a warm bed, a chilly autumn morning, and a decided inclination to quote the words of the sluggard, and "slumber again," could any proposition be more inopportune, savage, and alarming? I shuddered; I protested; I resisted; but in vain.

"I shall be up again in less time than it will take you to tell your beads, mon gaillard" said Mueller the ferocious, as, having captured my Napoleon, he prepared to go down and liquidate with number One Thousand and Eleven. "And it's of no use to bolt me out, because I shall hammer away till you let me in, and that will wake your fellow-lodgers. So let me find you up, and ready for the fray."

And then, execrating Mueller, and Molino, and Molino's bath, and Molino's customers, and all Molino's ancestors from the period of the deluge downwards, I reluctantly complied.

The air was brisk, the sky cloudless, the sun coldly bright; and the city wore that strange, breathless, magical look so peculiar to Paris at early morning. The shops were closed; the pavements deserted; the busy thoroughfares silent as the avenues of Pere la Chaise. Yet how different from the early stillness of London! London, before the world is up and stirring, looks dead, and sullen, and melancholy; but Paris lies all beautiful, and bright, and mysterious, with a look as of dawning smiles upon her face; and we know that she will wake presently, like the Sleeping Beauty, to sudden joyousness and activity.

Our road lay for a little way along the Boulevards, then down the Rue Vivienne, and through the Palais Royal to the quays; but long ere we came within sight of the river this magical calm had begun to break up. The shop-boys in the Palais Royal were already taking down the shutters—the great book-stall at the end of the Galerie Vitree showed signs of wakefulness; and in the Place du Louvre there was already a detachment of brisk little foot-soldiers at drill. By the time we had reached the open line of the quays, the first omnibuses were on the road; the water-carriers were driving their carts and blowing their shrill little bugles; the washer-women, hard at work in their gay, oriental-looking floating kiosques, were hammering away, mallet in hand, and chattering like millions of magpies; and the early matin-bell was ringing to prayers as we passed the doors of St. Germain L'Auxerrois.

And now we were skirting the Quai de l'Ecole, looking down upon the bath known in those days as Molino's—a hugh, floating quadrangular structure, surrounded by trellised arcades and rows of dressing-rooms, with a divan, a cafe restaurant, and a permanent corps of cooks and hair-dressers on the establishment. For your true Parisian has ever been wedded to his Seine, as the Venetian to his Adriatic; and the Ecole de Natation was then, as now, a lounge, a reading-room, an adjunct of the clubs, and one of the great institutions of the capital.

Some bathers, earlier than ourselves, were already sauntering about the galleries in every variety of undress, from the simple calecon to the gaudiest version of Turkish robe and Algerian kepi. Some were smoking; some reading the morning papers; some chatting in little knots; but as yet, with the exception of two or three school-boys (called, in the argot of the bath, moutards), there were no swimmers in the water.

With some of these loungers Mueller exchanged a nod or a few words as we passed along the platform; but shook hands cordially with a bronzed, stalwart man, dressed like a Venetian gondolier in the frontispiece to a popular ballad, with white trousers, blue jacket, anchor buttons, red sash, gold ear-rings, and great silver buckles in his shoes. Mueller introduced this romantic-looking person to me as "Monsieur Barbet."

"My friend, Monsieur Barbet," said he, "is the prince of swimming-masters. He is more at home in the water than on land, and knows more about swimming than a fish. He will calculate you the specific gravity of the heaviest German metaphysician at a glance, and is capable of floating even the works of Monsieur Thiers, if put to the test."

"Monsieur can swim?" said the master, addressing me, with a nautical scrape.

"I think so," I replied.

"Many gentlemen think so," said Monsieur Barbet, "till they find themselves in the water."

"And many who wish to be thought accomplished swimmers never venture into it on that account," added Mueller. "You would scarcely suppose," he continued, turning to me, "that there are men here—regular habitues of the bath—who never go into the water, and yet give themselves all the airs of practised bathers. That tall man, for instance, with the black beard and striped peignoir, yonder—there's a fellow who comes once or twice a week all through the season, goes through the ceremony of undressing, smokes, gossips, criticises, is looked up to as an authority, and has never yet been seen off the platform. Then there's that bald man in the white robe—his name's Giroflet—a retired stockbroker. Well, that fellow robes himself like an ancient Roman, puts himself in classical attitudes, affects taciturnity, models himself upon Brutus, and all that sort of thing; but is as careful not to get his feet wet as a cat. Others, again, come simply to feed. The restaurant is one of the choicest in Paris, with this advantage over Vefour or the Trois Freres, that it is the only place where you may eat and drink of the best in hot weather, with nothing on but the briefest of calecons"

Thus chattering, Mueller took me the tour of the bath, which now began to fill rapidly. We then took possession of two little dressing-rooms no bigger than sentry-boxes, and were presently in the water.

The scene now became very animated. Hundreds of eccentric figures crowded the galleries—some absurdly fat, some ludicrously thin; some old, some young; some bow-legged, some knock-kneed; some short, some tall; some brown, some yellow; some got up for effect in gorgeous wrappers; and all more or less hideous.

"An amusing sight, isn't it?" said Mueller, as, having swum several times round the bath, we sat down for a few moments on one of the flights of steps leading down to the water.

"It is a sight to disgust one for ever with human-kind," I replied.

"And to fill one with the profoundest respect for one's tailor. After all, it's broad-cloth makes the man."

"But these are not men—they are caricatures."

"Every man is a caricature of himself when you strip him," said Mueller, epigrammatically. "Look at that scarecrow just opposite. He passes for an Adonis, de par le monde."

I looked and recognised the Count de Rivarol, a tall young man, an elegant of the first water, a curled darling of society, a professed lady-killer, whom I had met many a time in attendance on Madame de Marignan. He now looked like a monkey:—

.... "long, and lank and brown, As in the ribb'd sea sand!"

"Gracious heavens!" I exclaimed, "what would become of the world, if clothes went out of fashion?"

"Humph!—one half of us, my dear fellow, would commit suicide."

At the upper end of the bath was a semicircular platform somewhat loftier than the rest, called the Amphitheatre. This, I learned, was the place of honor. Here clustered the elite of the swimmers; here they discussed the great principles of their art, and passed judgment on the performances of those less skilful than themselves. To the right of the Amphitheatre rose a slender spiral staircase, like an openwork pillar of iron, with a tiny circular platform on the top, half surrounded by a light iron rail. This conspicuous perch, like the pillar of St. Simeon Stylites, was every now and then surmounted by the gaunt figure of some ambitious plunger who, after attitudinizing awhile in the pose of Napoleon on the column Vendome, would join his hands above his head and take a tremendous "header" into the gulf below. When this feat was successfully performed, the elite in the Amphitheatre applauded graciously.

And now, what with swimming, and lounging, and looking on, some two hours had slipped by, and we were both hungry and tired, Mueller proposed that we should breakfast at the Cafe Procope.

"But why not here?" I asked, as a delicious breeze from the buffet came wafting by "like a steam of rich distilled perfumes."

"Because a breakfast chez Molino costs at least twenty-five francs per head—BECAUSE I have credit at Procope—BECAUSE I have not a sou in my pocket—and BECAUSE, milord Smithfield, I aspire to the honor of entertaining your lordship on the present occasion!" replied Mueller, punctuating each clause of his sentence with a bow.