So saying, Mueller, having stopped me as I was coming down the steps of the Hotel Dieu, linked his arm in mine, drew me into a shady angle under the lee of Notre Dame, and, without leaving me time to reply, went on pouring out his light, eager chatter as readily as a mountain-spring bubbles out its waters.

“I thought you’d like to know about the Tapottes, you see—­and I was dying to tell you.  I went to your rooms last night between eight and nine, and you were out; so I thought the only sure way was to come here—­I know you never miss Bollinet’s Lectures.  Well, as I was saying, the Tapottes....  Oh, mon cher!  I am your debtor for life in that matter of Milord Smithfield.  It has been the making of me.  What do you think?  Tapotte is not only going to sit for a companion half-length to Madame’s portrait, but he has given me a commission for half-a-dozen ancestors.  Fancy—­half-a-dozen illustrious dead-and-done Tapottes!  What a scope for the imagination!  What a bewildering vista of billets de banque!  I feel—­ah, mon ami!  I feel that the wildest visions of my youth are about to be realized, and that I shall see my tailor’s bill receipted before I die!”

“I’m delighted,” said I, “that Tapotte has turned up a trump card.”

“A trump card?  Say a California—­a Pactolus—­a Golden Calf.  Nay, hath not Tapotte two golden calves?  Is he not of the precious metal all compact?  Stands he not, in the amiable ripeness of his years, a living representative of the Golden Age? ’O bella eta dell’ oro!’”

And to my horror, he then and there executed a frantic pas seul.

“Gracious powers!” I exclaimed.  “Are you mad?”

“Yes—­raving mad.  Have you any objection?”

“But, my dear fellow—­in the face of day—­in the streets of Paris!  We shall get taken up by the police!”

“Then suppose we get out of the streets of Paris?  I’m tired enough, Heaven knows, of cultivating the arid soil of the Pave.  See, it’s a glorious afternoon.  Let’s go somewhere.”

“With all my heart.  Where?”

“Ah, mon Dieu! ca m’est egal.  Enghien—­Vincennes—­St. Cloud—­Versailles ... anywhere you like.  Most probably there’s a fete going on somewhere, if we only knew where,”

“Can’t we find out?”

“Oh, yes—­we can drop into a Cafe and look at the Petites Affiches; only that entails an absinthe; or we can go into the nearest Omnibus Bureau and see the notices on the walls, which will be cheaper.”

So we threaded our way along the narrow thoroughfares of the Ile de la Cite, and came presently to an Omnibus Bureau on the Quai de l’Horloge, overlooking the Pont Neuf and the river.  Here the first thing we saw was a flaming placard setting forth the pleasures and attractions of the great annual fete at Courbevoie; a village on the banks of the Seine, a mile or two beyond Neuilly.

“Voila, notre affaire!” said Mueller, gaily.  “We can’t do better than steer straight for Courbevoie.”