“Monsieur was, doubtless, a contemporary of Vestris, the famous dancer,” I said.

“The illustrious Vestris, Monsieur,” said the little old gentleman, “was, next to Louis the Fourteenth, the greatest of Frenchmen.  I am proud to own myself his disciple, as well as his contemporary.”

“Why next to Louis the Fourteenth, Monsieur Dorinet?” I asked, keeping my countenance with difficulty.  “Why not next to Napoleon the First, who was a still greater conqueror?”

“But no dancer, Monsieur!” replied the ex-god Scamander, with a kind of half pirouette; “whereas the Grand Monarque was the finest dancer of his epoch.”

Madame Marotte had by this time supplied all her guests with tea and coffee, while Monsieur Philomene went round with the cakes and bread and butter.  Madame Desjardins spread her pocket-handkerchief on her lap—­a pocket-handkerchief the size of a small table-cloth.  Madame de Montparnasse, more mindful of her gentility, removed to a corner of the tea-table, and ate her bread and butter in her black cotton gloves.

“We hope we have another bachelor by-and-by,” said Madame Marotte, addressing herself to the young ladies, who looked down and giggled.  “A charming man, mesdemoiselles, and quite the gentleman—­our locataire, M’sieur Lenoir.  You know him, M’sieur Dorinet—­pray tell these demoiselles what a charming man M’sieur Lenoir is!”

The little dancing-master bowed, coughed, smiled, and looked somewhat embarrassed.

“Monsieur Lenoir is no doubt a man of much information,” he said, hesitatingly; “a traveller—­a reader—­a gentleman—­oh! yes, certainly a gentleman.  But to say that he is a—­a charming man ... well, perhaps the ladies are the best judges of such nice questions.  What says Mam’selle Marie?”

Thus applied to, the fair Marie became suddenly crimson, and had not a word to reply with.  Monsieur Dorinet stared.  The young ladies tittered.  Madame Marotte, deaf as a post and serenely unconscious, smiled, nodded, and said “Ah, yes, yes—­didn’t I tell you so?”

“Monsieur Dorinet has, I fear, asked an indiscreet question,” said Mueller, boiling over with jealousy.

“I—­I have not observed Monsieur Lenoir sufficiently to—­to form an opinion,” faltered Marie, ready to cry with vexation.

Mueller glared at her reproachfully, turned on his heel, and came over to where I was standing.

“You saw how she blushed?” he said in a fierce whisper. “Sacredie!  I’ll bet my head she’s an arrant flirt.  Who, in the name of all the fiends, is this lodger she’s been carrying on with?  A lodger, too—­oh! the artful puss!”

At this awkward moment, Monsieur Dorinet, with considerable tact, asked Monsieur Philomene for a song; and Monsieur Philomene (who as I afterwards learned was a favorite tenor at fifth-rate concerts) was graciously pleased to comply.

Not, however, without a little preliminary coquetry, after the manner of tenors.  First he feared he was hoarse; then struck a note or two on the piano, and tried his falsetto; then asked for a glass of water; and finally begged that one of the young ladies would be so amiable as to accompany him.