e adjacent taverns, or to the not
far distant "Grande-Chaumiere," "si on continue a nous assommer avec des
vers." The threat invariably produced its effect. The "minstrel" was
politely requested to "shut up," and Beranger, Desaugiers, or even M.
Scribe, took the place of the Victor Hugo in embryo until the small
hours of the morning; the departure of the guests being witnessed by the
night-capped inhabitants of the Rue Childebert from their windows,
amidst the comforting reflections that for another three weeks or so
there would be peace in the festive halls of that "accursed building."

My frequent visits to "La Childebert" had developed a taste for the
Bohemian attractions of the Quartier-Latin. I was not twenty, and though
I caught frequent glimpses at home of some of the eminent men with whom
a few years later I lived on terms of friendship, I could not aspire to
their society then. It is doubtful whether I would have done so if I
could. I preferred the Theatre Bobino to the Opera and the
Comedie-Francaise; the Grande-Chaumiere--or the Chaumiere, as it was
simply called--to the most brilliantly lighted and decorated ball-room;
a stroll with a couple of young students in the gardens of the
Luxembourg to a carriage-drive in the Bois de Boulogne; a dinner for
three francs at Magny's, in the Rue Contrescarpe-Dauphine, or even one
for twenty-two sous at Viot's or Blery's, to the most sumptuous repast
at the Cafe Riche or the Cafe de Paris. I preferred the buttered rolls
and the bowl of milk at the Boulangerie Cretaine, in the Rue Dauphine,
to the best suppers at the Cafe Anglais, whither I had been taken once
or twice during the Carnival--in short, I was very young and very
foolish; since then I have often wished that, at the risk of remaining
very foolish for evermore, I could have prolonged my youth for another
score of years.

For once in a way I have no need to be ashamed of my want of memory. I
could not give an account of a single piece I saw during those two or
three years at Bobino, but I am certain that not one of the companions
of my youth could. It is not because the lapse of time has dimmed the
recollection of the plots, but because there were no plots, or at any
rate none that we could understand, and I doubt very much whether the
actors and actresses were more enlightened in that respect than the
audience. The pieces were vaudevilles, most of them, and it was
sufficient for us to join in the choruses of th