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; boats and punts for hire, and a swimming-match just coming off, of which all that is visible are two black heads bobbing up and down along the middle of the stream.

“And now, mon ami, what do you vote for?” asks Mueller.  “Boating or fishing? or both? or neither?”

“Both, if you like—­but I never caught anything in my life,”

“The pleasure of fishing, I take it,” says Mueller, “is not in the fish you catch, but in the fish you miss.  The fish you catch is a poor little wretch, worth neither the trouble of landing, cooking, nor eating; but the fish you miss is always the finest fellow you ever saw in your life!”

“Allons donc!  I know, then, which of us two will have most of the pleasure to-day,” I reply, laughing.  “But how about the expense?”

To which Mueller, with a noble recklessness, answers:—­

“Oh, hang the expense!  Here, boatman! a boat a quatre rames, and some fishing-tackle—­by the hour.”

Now it was undoubtedly a fine sentiment this of Mueller’s, and had we but fetched my two Napoleons before starting, I should have applauded it to the echo; but when I considered that something very nearly approaching to a franc had already filtered out of our pockets in passing through the fair, and that the hour of dinner was looming somewhat indefinitely in the distance, I confess that my soul became disquieted within me.

“Don’t forget, for heaven’s sake,” I said, “that we must keep something for dinner!”

“My dear fellow,” he replied, “I have already a tremendous appetite for dinner—­that is something.”

After this, I resigned myself to whatever might happen.

We then rowed up the river for about a mile beyond Courbevoie. moored our boat to a friendly willow, put our fishing-tackle together, and composed ourselves for the gentle excitement that waits upon the gudgeon and the minnow.

“I haven’t yet had a single nibble,” said Mueller, when we had been sitting to our work for something less than ten minutes.

“Hush!” I said.  “You mustn’t speak, you know.”

“True—­I had forgotten.  I’ll sing instead.  Fishes, I have been told, are fond of music.

     ’Fanfan, je vous aimerais bien;
       Contre vous je n’ai nul caprice;
     Vous etes gentil, j’en convien....’”

“Come, now!” I exclaimed pettishly, “this is really too bad.  I had a bite—­a most decided bite—­and if you had only kept quiet"....

“Nonsense, my dear fellow!  I tell you again—­and I have it on the best authority—­fishes like music.  Did you never hear of Arion!  Have you forgotten about the Syrens?  Believe me, your gudgeon nibbled because I sang him to the surface—­just as the snakes come out for the song of the snake-charmer.  I’ll try again!”