“Is that necessary?”

“Indispensable—­at all events in the honorable society of Les Chicards."

“Les Chicards!” I repeated.  “What are they?”

“It is the name of the club, and means—­Heaven only knows what! for Greek or Latin root it has none, and record of it there exists not, unless in the dictionary of Argot.  And yet if you were an old Parisian and had matriculated for the last dozen years at the Bal de l’Opera, you would know the illustrious Chicard by sight as familiarly as Punch, or Paul Pry, or Pierrot.  He is a gravely comic personage with a bandage over one eye, a battered hat considerably inclining to the back of his head, a coat with a high collar and long tails, and a tout ensemble indescribably seedy—­something between a street preacher and a travelling showman.  But here we are.  Take care how you come down, and mind your head.”

Having turned aside some few minutes before into the Rue St. Honore, we had thence diverged down a narrow street with a gutter running along the middle and no foot-pavements on either side.  The houses seemed to be nearly all shops, some few of which, for the retailing of charbonnerie, stale vegetables, uninviting cooked meats, and so forth, were still open; but that before which we halted was closely shuttered up, with only a private door open at the side, lighted by a single oil-lamp.  Following my friend for a couple of yards along the dim passage within, I became aware of strange sounds, proceeding apparently from the bowels of the earth, and found myself at the head of a steep staircase, down which it was necessary to proceed with my body bent almost double, in consequence of the close proximity of the ceiling and the steps.  At the foot of this staircase came another dim passage and another oil-lamp over a low door, at which Dalrymple paused a moment before entering.  The sounds which I had heard above now resolved themselves into their component parts, consisting of roars of laughter, snatches of songs, clinkings of glasses, and thumpings of bottles upon tables, to the accompaniment of a deep bass hum of conversation, all of which prepared me to find a very merry company within.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE HONORABLE SOCIETY OF LES CHICARDS.

“When a set of men find themselves agree in any particular, though never so trivial, they establish themselves into a kind of fraternity, and meet once or twice a week.”—­Spectator.

It was a long, low room lighted by gas, with a table reaching from end to end.  Round about this table, in various stages of conviviality and conversation, were seated some thirty or forty men, capped, bearded, and eccentric-looking, with all kinds of queer blouses and wonderful heads of hair.  Dropping into a couple of vacant chairs at the lower end of this table, we called for a bottle of Chablis, lit our cigars, and fell in with the general business of the evening.  At the top, dimly visible through a dense fog of tobacco smoke, sat a stout man in a green coat fastened by a belt round the waist.  He was evidently the President, and, instead of a hammer, had a small bugle lying by his side, which he blew from time to time to enforce silence.