“Tiens!” said Mueller, reflectively.  “We have but one franc left.  One franc, two sous, and a centime. Vive la France!”

“And you have actually asked that wretched old woman and her niece to dinner!”

“And I have actually solicited that excellent and admirable woman, Madame Marotte, relict of the late lamented Jacques Marotte, umbrella maker, of number one hundred and two, Rue du Faubourg St. Denis, and her beautiful and accomplished niece, Mademoiselle Marie Charpentier, to honor us with their company this evening. Dis-donc, what shall we give them for dinner?”

“Precisely what you invited them to, I should guess—­the fish we caught this afternoon.”

“Agreed.  And what else?”

“Say—­a dish of invisible greens, and a phoenix a la Marengo.”

“You are funny, mon cher.”

“Then, for fear I should become too funny—­good afternoon.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I have no mind to dine first, and be kicked out of doors afterwards.  It is one of those aids to digestion that I can willingly dispense with.”

“But if I guarantee that the dinner shall be paid for—­money down!”

“Tra la la!”

“You don’t believe me?  Well, come and see.”

With this, he went up to Madame Marotte, who, with her niece, had sat down on a bench under a walnut-tree close by, waiting our pleasure.

“Would not these ladies prefer to rest here, while we seek for a suitable restaurant and order the dinner?” said Mueller insinuatingly.

The old lady looked somewhat blank.  She was not too tired to go on—­thought it a pity to bring us all the way back again—­would do, however, as “ces messieurs” pleased; and so was left sitting under the walnut-tree, reluctant and disconsolate.

“Tiens! mon enfant” I heard her say as we turned away, “suppose they don’t come back again!”

We had promised to be gone not longer, than twenty minutes, or at most half an hour.  Mueller led the way straight to the Toison d’ Or.

I took him by the arm as we neared the gate.

“Steady, steady, mon gaillard” I said.  “We don’t order our dinner, you know, till we’ve found the money to pay for it.”

“True—­but suppose I go in here to look for it?”

“Into the restaurant garden?”

“Precisely.”

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE PETIT COURIER ILLUSTRE.

THE Toison d’ Or was but a modest little establishment as regarded the house, but it was surrounded on three sides by a good-sized garden overlooking the river.  Here, in the trellised arbors which lined the lawn on either side, those customers who preferred the open air could take their dinners, coffees, and absinthes al fresco.

The scene when we arrived was at its gayest.  There were dinners going on in every arbor; waiters running distractedly to and fro with trays and bottles; two women, one with a guitar, the other with a tamborine, singing under a tree in the middle of the garden; while in the air there reigned an exhilarating confusion of sounds and smells impossible to describe.