ng in
the same direction as themselves, were victorias carrying women in spring
costumes and wearing bonnets decked with flowers. From time to time the
friends were elbowed by students shouting popular refrains and walking in
Indian-file.

Here is Bullier's! They step into the blazing entrance, and go thence to
the stairway which leads to the celebrated public ballroom. They are
stifled by the odor of dust, escaping gas, and human flesh. Alas! there
are in every village in France doctors in hansom cabs, country lawyers,
and any quantity of justices of the peace, who, I can assure you, regret
this stench as they take the fresh air in the open country under the
starry heavens, breathing the exquisite perfume of new-mown hay; for it
is mingled with the little poetry that they have had in their lives, with
their student's love-affairs, and their youth.

All the same, this Bullier's is a low place, a caricature of the Alhambra
in pasteboard. Three or four thousand moving heads in a cloud of
tobacco-smoke, and an exasperating orchestra playing a quadrille in which
dancers twist and turn, tossing their legs with calm faces and audacious
gestures.

"What a mob!" said Amedee, already a trifle disgusted. "Let us go into
the garden."

They were blinded by the gas there; the thickets looked so much like old
scenery that one almost expected to see the yellow breastplates of
comic-opera dragoons; and the jet of water recalled one of those little
spurts of a shooting-gallery upon which an empty egg-shell dances. But
they could breathe there a little.

"Boy! two sodas," said Maurice, striking the table with his cane; and the
two friends sat down near the edge of a walk where the crowd passed and
repassed. They had been there about ten minutes when two women stopped
before them.

"Good-day, Maurice," said the taller, a brunette with rich coloring, the
genuine type of a tavern girl.

"What, Margot!" exclaimed the young man. "Will you take something? Sit
down a moment, and your friend too. Do you know, your friend is charming?
What is her name?"

"Rosine," replied the stranger, modestly, for she was only about
eighteen, and, in spite of the blond frizzles over her eyes, she was not
yet bold, poor child! She was making her debut, it was easy to see.

"Well, Mademoiselle Rosine, come here, that I may see you," continued
Maurice, seating the young girl beside him with a caressing gesture.
"You, Margot, I authorize to be unfaithfu