dly. She did not venture inside,
but in a clear voice asked, "Is M. Geoffroy here?" No definite answer
was forthcoming, but the men turned round, hearing her enquiry, and
seeing her pretty figure began to nudge one another and jest and laugh
coarsely. "Come in, missy," said one of them, but already Berthe had
quickly closed the door and lightly gone on her way.

A few yards further on there was another bar, and into this, also,
Berthe peeped and once more asked, "Is M. Geoffroy here?" adding by way
of further explanation, "Hogshead Geoffroy, I mean." This time a roar of
laughter followed, and the girl fled, flushed with indignation.

Yet she did not desist from her strange search, and at last, at the
sixth shop, her question was answered by a deep bass voice from the far
end of a smoke-clouded den. "Hogshead Geoffroy? Here!" and heaving a
sigh of relief Berthe went inside the shop.

* * * * *

When you want to see M. "Hogshead" Geoffroy, your procedure is
simplicity itself. As he has no known address, all you have to do is to
start at the bottom of the rue Clignancourt on the left-hand side, look
into every wineshop, and ask, in tones loud enough to be heard above the
clatter of conversation, whether Hogshead Geoffroy is there, and it will
be mighty bad luck if, at one or other of the bars, you do not hear the
answer, "Hogshead Geoffroy? Here," followed immediately by that
gentleman's order to the _patronne_: "Half a pint, please: the gentleman
will pay!" It is a safe order; the _patronne_ knows from past experience
that she can serve the half-pint without anxiety: Hogshead Geoffroy
rapidly drains it, and then holds out a huge and hairy hand to the
visitor and enquires, "Well, what is it?"

If, as often happens, the Hogshead finds himself confronted by a
stranger, he feels no surprise; he knows his own popularity, and is a
modest soul, so he calls his visitor by his Christian name at once, taps
him amicably on the shoulder, and calls him "old boy," and invites him
to stand a drink. The Hogshead is an artist in his line; he hires
himself out to public halls to announce in his powerful voice,
reinforced by a trumpet, the various items on the programme or the
results of performances achieved. He also harangues the crowd on behalf
of showmen, or hurls threats at too excited demonstrators at public
demonstrations. Between whiles he rolls hogsheads down into cellars, or
bottles wine, and ev