THAT TERRIBLE MÜLLER.

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 Müller, 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.

"Très volontiers, très 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 Müller 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 Müller, 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 Müller, 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 Müller 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 Müller, "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 Müller'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 Müller 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, Müller 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 Müller 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.

Müller, 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 Müller, 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 à 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 Müller 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. Müller 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."

THE PETIT COURIER ILLUSTRÉ.

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. Müller paused, looked round, captured a passing waiter, and asked for Monsieur le propriétaire. The waiter pointed over his shoulder towards the house, and breathlessly rushed on his way.

Müller 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."

Müller bowed majestically.

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

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...."

Müller 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 propriétaire, 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."

Müller 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 Müller; "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 Müller 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 propriétaire.

"You know who I am, Monsieur Choucru?"

"No, M'sieur--not in the least."

"I am Müller--Franz Müller--landscape painter, portrait painter, historical painter, caricaturist, artist en chef to the Petit Courier Illustré"

"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 Illustré. I take the Courbevoie fête 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, là bas, is standing still!" exclaimed the propriétaire, in an agony of impatience. "I have the honor to wish M'sieur good-day."

But Müller 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 Illustré, I need scarcely tell you," pursued Müller, 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 Asnières, 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 fêtes 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 Müller, with a start of horror. "Gracious powers! this to me--to Franz Müller of the Petit Courier Illustré! '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?

Müller 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 Müller, 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 Illustré?"

"Oh, by--by all means--with pleasure," faltered the propriétaire.

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

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

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

Müller 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 obligé, M'sieur--bien obligé. Will you not let my wife offer you a glass of liqueure?"

"Liqueure, mon cher!" exclaimed Müller, 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 soufflés. Tiens, mon bon, go down and prepare a cheese soufflé for two."

Müller 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 Illustré. She had no time, however, to demur to the arrangement; for Müller, 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 Illustré?"

"The Editor of the Petit Courier Illustré 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, Müller 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 soufflé; 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, Müller 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 Frères.

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!

Müller 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, Müller 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 Müller, 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 gré, mal gré, 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 à deux temps. The band struck up--one--two--three. Away went some thirty couples--away went Müller 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 Müller 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 Cité Bergère.

"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 fête 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 Müller 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?

THE ÉCOLE 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 Müller 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 Müller, 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 Barrière de l'Étoile 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 Müller 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 Müller, 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 Père 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 Vitrée 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'École, 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 café 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 École 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 caleçon 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 Müller 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. Müller 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 Müller. "You would scarcely suppose," he continued, turning to me, "that there are men here--regular habitués 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 Véfour or the Trois Frères, 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 caleçons"

Thus chattering, Müller 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 Müller, 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 Müller, 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 élégant 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 élite 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 Vendôme, would join his hands above his head and take a tremendous "header" into the gulf below. When this feat was successfully performed, the élite 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, Müller proposed that we should breakfast at the Café 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 Müller, punctuating each clause of his sentence with a bow.

If Müller had not a sou, I, at all events, had now only one Napoleon; so the Café Procope carried the day.

THE RUE DE L'ANCIENNE COMÉDIE AND THE CAFÉ PROCOPE.

The Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-des-Près and the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie are one and the same. As the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-des-Près, it dates back to somewhere about the reign of Philippe Auguste; and as the Rue de l'Ancienne Comèdie it takes its name and fame from the year 1689, when the old Théâtre Français was opened on the 18th of April by the company known as Moliêre's troupe--Moliêre being then dead, and Lully having succeeded him at the Théâtre du Palais Royal.

In the same year, 1689, one François Procope, a Sicilian, conceived the happy idea of hiring a house just opposite the new theatre, and there opening a public refreshment-room, which at once became famous, not only for the excellence of its coffee (then newly introduced into France), but also for being the favorite resort of all the wits, dramatists, and beaux of that brilliant time. Here the latest epigrams were circulated, the newest scandals discussed, the bitterest literary cabals set on foot. Here Jean Jacques brooded over his chocolate; and Voltaire drank his mixed with coffee; and Dorat wrote his love-letters to Mademoiselle Saunier; and Marmontel wrote praises of Mademoiselle Clairon; and the Marquis de Biévre made puns innumerable; and Duclos and Mercier wrote satires, now almost forgotten; and Piron recited those verses which are at once his shame and his fame; and the Chevalier de St. Georges gave fencing lessons to his literary friends; and Lamothe, Fréron, D'Alembert, Diderot, Helvetius, and all that wonderful company of wits, philosophers, encyclopaedists, and poets, that lit up as with a dying glory the last decades of the old régime, met daily, nightly, to write, to recite, to squabble, to lampoon, and some times to fight.