“Parbleu! not I,” said the student, shouldering his camp-stool as if it were a musket, and slinging his portfolio by a strap across his back; “therefore, I am all the more obliged to you for the information.  My reading is neither very extensive nor very useful; and as for my library, I could pack it all into a hat-case any day, and find room for a few other trifles at the same time.  Here is the author I chiefly study.  He is my constant companion, and, like myself, looks somewhat the worse for wear.”

Saying which, he produced from one of his pockets a little, greasy, dog-eared volume of Beranger, about the size of a small snuff-box, and began singing aloud, to a very cheerful air, a song of which a certain faithless Mademoiselle Lisette was the heroine, and of which the refrain was always:—­

“Lisette! ma Lisette, Tu m’as trompe toujours; Je veux, Lisette, Boire a nos amours.”

To this accompaniment we walked back through the gardens to the railway station, where, being a quarter of an hour too soon, our companion amused himself by “chaffing,” questioning, contradicting, and otherwise ingeniously tormenting the check-takers and porters of the establishment.  One pompous official, in particular, became so helplessly indignant that he retired into a little office overlooking the platform, and was heard to swear fluently, all by himself, for several minutes.  The time having expired and the doors being opened, we passed out with the rest of the home-going Parisians, and were about to take our places, when Mueller, climbing like a cat to the roof-seats on the top of the second-class carriages, beckoned us to follow.

“Who would be shut up with ten fat people and a baby, when fresh air can be breathed, and tobacco smoked, for precisely the same fare?” asked he.  “You don’t mean to say that you came down to St. Germains in one of the dens below?”

“Yes, we did,” I replied; “but we had it to ourselves.”

“So much the worse.  Man is a gregarious animal, and woman also—­which proves Zimmerman to have been neither, and accounts for the brotherhood of Les Chicards.  Would you like to see how that old gentleman looks when he is angry?”

“Which?  The one in the opposite corner?”

“The same.”

“Well, that depends on circumstances.  Why do you ask?”

“Because I’ll engage to satisfy your curiosity in less than ten minutes.”

“Oh, no, don’t affront him,” said I.  “We shall only have a scene.”

“I won’t affront him.  I promise not to utter a syllable, either offensive or defensive.”

“Leave him alone, then, poor devil!”

“Nonsense!  If he chooses to be annoyed, that’s his business, and not mine.  Now, you’ll see.”