VIRTUE

He was one of the institutions of the Latin Quarter, one of the least
admirable. He haunted the Boulevard St. Michel, hung round the cafes,
begged of the passing stranger, picked up cigarette-ends, and would,
at a pinch, run errands, or do odd jobs.

With his sallow, wrinkled skin, his jungle of grey beard, his thick
grey hair, matted and shiny, covering his ears and falling about his
shoulders, he was scarcely an attractive-looking person. Besides, he
had lost an eye; and its empty socket irresistibly drew your gaze--an
abhorrent vacuum. His clothes would be the odds and ends of students'
offcasts, in the last stages of disintegration. He had a chronic
stoop; always aimed his surviving eye obliquely at you, from a bent
head; and walked with a sort of hang-dog shuffle that seemed a general
self-denunciation.

Where he slept, whether under a roof or on the pavement, and when,
were among his secrets. No matter how late or how early you were
abroad, you would be sure to encounter Bibi, wide-awake, somewhere in
the Boul' Miche, between the Luxembourg and the Rue des Ecoles. That
was his beat. Perhaps one of the benches was his home.

He lived in a state of approximate intoxication. I never drew near to
him without getting a whiff of alcohol, yet I never saw him radically
drunk. His absorbent capacity must have been tremendous. It is certain
he spent all the sous he could collect for liquids (he never wasted
money upon food; he knew where to go for crusts of bread and broken
meat; the back doors of restaurants have their pensioners), and if
invited to drink as the guest of another, he would drain tumbler after
tumbler continuously, until his entertainer stopped him, and would
appear no further over-seas at the end than at the outset. There was
something pathetic in his comparative sobriety, like an unfulfilled
aspiration.

He was one of the institutions of the Quarter, one of the
notabilities. It was a matter of pride (I can't think why) to be on
terms of hail-fellowship with him, on terms to thee-and-thou him, and
call him by his nick-name, Bibi, Bibi Ragout: a sobriquet that he had
come by long before my time, and whose origin I never heard explained.
It seemed sufficiently disrespectful, but he accepted it cheerfully,
and would often, indeed, employ it in place of the personal pronoun in
referring to himself. 'You're not going to forget Bibi--you'll not
forget poor old Bibi Ragout?' would be his greeting o