h its rows of
glazed tongues, mighty Lyons sausages, yellow _terrines_ of Strasbourg
pies, fantastically shaped pickle-jars, and pyramids of silvery
sardine boxes.

It was at number One Hundred and Two in this agreeable thoroughfare that
my friend's innamorata resided with her maternal aunt, the worthy relict
of Monsieur Jacques Marotte, umbrella-maker, deceased. Thither,
accordingly, we wended our miry way, Mueller and I, after dining together
at one of our accustomed haunts on the evening following the events
related in my last chapter. The day had been dull and drizzly, and the
evening had turned out duller and more drizzly still. We had not had
rain for some time, and the weather had been (as it often is in Paris in
October) oppressively hot; and now that the rain had come, it did not
seem to cool the air at all, but rather to load it with vapors, and make
the heat less endurable than before.

Having toiled all the way up from the Rue de la Harpe on the farther
bank of the Seine, and having forded the passage of the Arch of Louis le
Grand, we were very wet and muddy indeed, very much out of breath, and
very melancholy objects to behold.

"It's dreadful to think of going into any house in this condition,
Mueller," said I, glancing down ruefully at the state of my boots, and
having just received a copious spattering of mud all down the left side
of my person. "What is to be done?"

"We've only to go to a boot-cleaning and brushing-up shop," replied
Mueller. "There's sure to be one close by somewhere."

"A boot-cleaning and brushing-up shop!" I echoed.

"What--didn't you know there were lots of them, all over Paris? Have you
never noticed places that look like shops, with ground glass windows
instead of shop-fronts, on which are painted up the words, '_cirage des
bottes?_'"

"Never, that I can remember."

"Then be grateful to me for a piece of very useful information! Suppose
we turn down this by-street--it's mostly to the seclusion of by-streets
and passages that our bashful sex retires to renovate its boots and its
broadcloth."

I followed him, and in the course of a few minutes we found the sort of
place of which we were in search. It consisted of one large, long room,
like a shop without goods, counters, or shelves. A single narrow bench
ran all round the walls, raised on a sort of wooden platform about three
feet in width and three feet from the ground. Seated upon this bench,
somewhat uncomfortably, a