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, as it seemed, with their backs against the wall, sat some ten or a dozen men and boys, each with an attendant shoeblack kneeling before him, brushing away vigorously.  Two or three other customers, standing up in the middle of the shop, like horses in the hands of the groom, were having their coats brushed instead of their boots.  Of those present, some looked like young shopmen, some were of the ouvrier class, and one or two looked like respectable small tradesmen and fathers of families.  The younger men were evidently smartening up for an hour or two at some cheap ball or Cafe-Concert, now that the warehouse was closed, and the day’s work was over.

Our boots being presently brought up to the highest degree of polish, and our garments cleansed of every disfiguring speck, we paid a few sous apiece and turned out again into the streets.  Happily, we had not far to go.  A short cut brought us into the midst of the Rue de Faubourg St. Denis, and within a few yards of a gloomy-looking little shop with the words “Veuve Marotte” painted up over the window, and a huge red and white umbrella dangling over the door.  A small boy in a shiny black apron was at that moment putting up the shutters; the windows of the front room over the shop were brightly lit from within; and a little old gentleman in goloshes and a large blue cloak with a curly collar, was just going in at the private door.  We meekly followed him, and hung up our hats and overcoats, as he did, in the passage.