ck by the
cocked hat, Pierre of the pigeons, and a third man who came tumbling up
precipitately from somewhere behind the stage, vented his fury, in a
torrent of very highly civilized French oaths.

"Eh, _sacredieu_!" he cried, shaking his fist in Mueller's face, "I've
not done with you yet, _diable de galerien_!"

Whereupon there burst forth a general roar--a roar like the
"inextinguishable laughter" of Olympus.

"_Tiens_!" said Mueller, "his majesty speaks French almost as well as I
speak Ashantee!"

"_Bourreau! Brigand! Assassin_!" shrieked his Ferocity, as his friends
hustled him off the stage.

The curtains then fell together again; and the audience, still laughing
vociferously, dispersed with cries of "Vive Caraba Rodokala!" "Kind
remembrances to the Queens of Ashantee!" "What's the latest news from
home?" "Borriobooloo-bah--ah--ah!"

Elbowing our way out with the crowd, we now plunged once more into the
press of the fair. Here our old friends the dancing dogs of the Champs
Elysees, and the familiar charlatan of the Place du Chatelet with his
chariot and barrel-organ, transported us from Ashantee to Paris. Next we
came to a temporary shooting-gallery, adorned over the entrance with a
spirited cartoon of a Tyrolean sharpshooter; and then to an exhibition
of cosmoramas; and presently to a weighing machine, in which a great,
rosy-cheeked, laughing Normandy peasant girl, with her high cap, blue
skirt, massive gold cross and heavy ear-rings, was in the act of
being weighed.

"_Tiens! Mam'selle est joliment solide_!" remarks a saucy bystander, as
the owner of the machine piles on weight after weight.

"Perhaps if I had no more brains than m'sieur, I should weigh as light!"
retorts the damsel, with a toss of her high cap.

"_Pardon_! it is not a question of brains--it is a question of hearts,"
interposes an elderly exquisite in a white hat. "Mam'selle has captured
so many that she is completely over weighted."

"Twelve stone six ounces," pronounces the owner of the machine,
adjusting the last weight.

Whereupon there is a burst of ironical applause, and the big _paysanne_,
half laughing, half angry, walks off, exclaiming, "_Eh bien! tant
mieux_! I've no mind to be a scarecrow--_moi_!"

By this time we have both had enough of the fair, and are glad to make
our way out of the crowd and down to the riverside. Here we find lovers
strolling in pairs along the towing-path; family groups pic-nicking in
the shade