Paris ca n'se fait guere. Ah, mon ami Thomas! a
Paris ca n'se fait pas!

When a sentimental song is sung the audience pay little attention. To
patriotic songs they listen respectfully. A song which breathes the
glories of literature as represented by Montaigne, Jean Jacques
Rousseau, and Moliere is tolerated idly. But when the stage is
presently cleared for a ballet the young blousards--for they are
mostly young men who gather here--are all attention. What is their
disgust at perceiving that the dancers are men in ancient Greek
costumes, who do a sword-fight to music, with periods of sudden
tableau-attitude striking! They are a bit ridiculous, these Greeks,
flopping about the stage in tights and tunics, and presently three or
four blousards near me begin to guy the performance. "Ah-h-h!" they
cry, grinning broadly; "ah, ah, ha! ha-a-a-a!"--putting into this
utterance a world of amused scorn. The "regulator" of the
establishment--a solemn man in a tail-coat who walks about the hall
preserving order--gets angry at this. "Restez tranquilles," he says to
the jeerers, with expressive and emphatic forefinger leveled at the
group. Whereupon one of them, a handsome chap in a soft hat, leans his
elbows squarely on the table in front of him, wags his head saucily
and openly chaffs the solemn regulator. "Ah, bah!" he says, "do we
come _here_ to keep still?" The superintendent threatens to call the
police: the blousards laugh him to scorn. "You would make a fine
figure of yourself bringing here the police, wouldn't you? Look then
at what we have consumed!" pointing to the empty glasses before him on
the table. "Go along, then, do--go quickly--and bring here the police,
old wag that you are!" The regulator perceives the force of this
argument. "But they should be more respectful," he says, appealing to
me: "n'est ce pas, m'sieu?" and with this walks away. The hall is so
large, and the noise which fills it so prodigious, that this little
altercation has attracted no general attention, as it must have done
in a quieter place.

The theatre named by the beuglant's funny singer the "Funambules," to
which he took his friend Thomas under pretence that it was the opera,
is one of the queerest of the blousard's places of resort. It is a
droll little underground theatre--literally underground, with no
windows, no opening of any kind to the light of day, and no
ventilation. We reach it by a long winding way of pleasantly-lighted
stairs and