e----"

"In the meantime," said the fair Josephine, anticipating my hopes with
all the unembarrassed straightforwardness imaginable, "I shall be
delighted to improve M'sieur's acquaintance."

"Mademoiselle, you make me happy!"

"Besides, M'sieur is an Englishman, and I like the English so much!"

"I am delighted to hear it, Mademoiselle. I hope I shall never give you
cause to alter your opinion."

"Last galop before supper!" shouted Monsieur Jules through, a brass
speaking-trumpet, in order to make use of which he was obliged to hold
up his nose with one hand. "Gentlemen, choose your partners. All couples
to dance till they drop!"

There were a dozen up immediately, amongst whom Dalrymple and
Mademoiselle Annette, and Mueller with one of the ballet ladies, were the
first to start. As for Josephine, she proved to be a damsel of
forty-galop power. She never wanted to rest, and she never cared to
leave off. She did not even look warm when it was over. I wonder to this
day how it was that I did not die on the spot.

When the galop was ended, we all went upstairs to Monsieur Adrien's
garret, where Monsieur Adrien, who had red hair and wore glasses,
received us in person, and made us welcome. Here we found the supper
elegantly laid out on two doors which had been taken off their hinges
for the purpose; but which, being supported from beneath on divers boxes
and chairs of unequal heights, presented a painfully sloping surface,
thereby causing the jellies to look like leaning towers of Pisa, and the
spongecake (which was already professedly tipsy) to assume an air so
unbecomingly convivial that it might almost have been called drunk.

Nobody thought of sitting down, and, if they did, there were no means of
doing so; for Monsieur Adrien's garret was none of the largest, and, as
in a small villa residence we sometimes see the whole house sacrificed
to a winding staircase, so in this instance had the whole room been
sacrificed to the splendor of the supper. For the inconvenience of
standing, we were compensated, however, by the abundance and excellence
of the fare. There were cold chickens, meat-pies, dishes of sliced ham,
pyramids of little Bologna sausages, huge rolls of bread a yard in
length, lobster salad, and cold punch in abundance.

The flirtations at supper were tremendous. In a bachelor establishment
one cannot expect to find every convenience, and on this occasion the
prevailing deficiencies were among the pla