“My friend, Monsieur Barbet,” said he, “is the prince of swimming-masters.  He is more at home in the water than on land, and knows more about swimming than a fish.  He will calculate you the specific gravity of the heaviest German metaphysician at a glance, and is capable of floating even the works of Monsieur Thiers, if put to the test.”

“Monsieur can swim?” said the master, addressing me, with a nautical scrape.

“I think so,” I replied.

“Many gentlemen think so,” said Monsieur Barbet, “till they find themselves in the water.”

“And many who wish to be thought accomplished swimmers never venture into it on that account,” added Mueller.  “You would scarcely suppose,” he continued, turning to me, “that there are men here—­regular habitues of the bath—­who never go into the water, and yet give themselves all the airs of practised bathers.  That tall man, for instance, with the black beard and striped peignoir, yonder—­there’s a fellow who comes once or twice a week all through the season, goes through the ceremony of undressing, smokes, gossips, criticises, is looked up to as an authority, and has never yet been seen off the platform.  Then there’s that bald man in the white robe—­his name’s Giroflet—­a retired stockbroker.  Well, that fellow robes himself like an ancient Roman, puts himself in classical attitudes, affects taciturnity, models himself upon Brutus, and all that sort of thing; but is as careful not to get his feet wet as a cat.  Others, again, come simply to feed.  The restaurant is one of the choicest in Paris, with this advantage over Vefour or the Trois Freres, that it is the only place where you may eat and drink of the best in hot weather, with nothing on but the briefest of calecons”

Thus chattering, Mueller took me the tour of the bath, which now began to fill rapidly.  We then took possession of two little dressing-rooms no bigger than sentry-boxes, and were presently in the water.

The scene now became very animated.  Hundreds of eccentric figures crowded the galleries—­some absurdly fat, some ludicrously thin; some old, some young; some bow-legged, some knock-kneed; some short, some tall; some brown, some yellow; some got up for effect in gorgeous wrappers; and all more or less hideous.

“An amusing sight, isn’t it?” said Mueller, as, having swum several times round the bath, we sat down for a few moments on one of the flights of steps leading down to the water.

“It is a sight to disgust one for ever with human-kind,” I replied.

“And to fill one with the profoundest respect for one’s tailor.  After all, it’s broad-cloth makes the man.”

“But these are not men—­they are caricatures.”

“Every man is a caricature of himself when you strip him,” said Mueller, epigrammatically.  “Look at that scarecrow just opposite.  He passes for an Adonis, de par le monde.”

I looked and recognised the Count de Rivarol, a tall young man, an elegant of the first water, a curled darling of society, a professed lady-killer, whom I had met many a time in attendance on Madame de Marignan.  He now looked like a monkey:—­