are such as
wish to draw from that wealth and add nothing to it? The reddest
Republican is always the man who has nothing to lose and all to gain
by a social upheaval.

I was not surprised, therefore, when we found ourselves in a room full
of bad hats and unkempt heads. A voice was shouting their
requirements. I knew that they wanted a wash more than anything else.

The room was a large, low one, and looked larger through an atmosphere
blue with smoke and the fumes of absinthe. The Vicomte--a little man,
as I have said--slipped in unperceived. I was less fortunate, being of
a higher stature. I saw that my advent did not pass unobserved on the
platform, where a party of patriots sat in a row, like the Christy
Minstrels, showing the soles of their boots to all whom it might
concern. In this case a working cobbler would have been deeply
interested, as in a vast field of labour. The Vicomte slipped a few
yards away from me, and the shoulders of his fellow-countrymen
obscured him. I could find no such retreat, for your true Socialist
never has much to recommend him to the notice of society, being
usually a poor, mean man to look at, who seeks to add a cubit to his
stature by encouraging the growth of his hair.

One such stood on the platform, mouthing the bloodthirsty periods of
his creed. He caught sight of me.

"Ah!" he cried, "here is a new disciple. And a hardy one! _Un grand
gaillard_, my brethren, who can strike a solid blow for liberty,
equality and fraternity. Say, brother, you are with us; is it not so?"

"If you open the casements, not otherwise," I answered. The French
crowd is ever ready for blood or laughter. I have seen the Republic
completely set in the background by a cat looking in a window and
giving voice to the one word assigned to it by nature. Some laughed
now, and the orator deemed it wise to leave me in peace. I took
advantage of my obscurity to look around me, and was duly edified by
what I saw. The Paris _vaurien_ is worth less than any man on earth,
and these were choice specimens from the gutter.

We were wasting our time in such a galley, and as I thus reflected a
note was slipped into my hand.

"Follow me, but not at once." I read and hid the paper in my pocket.
Without staring about me too much, I watched the Vicomte make his way
towards a door half hidden by a dirty curtain--another to that by
which we had entered. Thither I followed him after a decent
interval--no one molesting me. O