Ah, those afternoons, those dinners, those ambrosial nights!  If the weather was kind, of course, we would begin our session on the terrasse, sipping our vermouth, puffing our cigarettes, laughing our laughs, tossing hither and thither our light ball of gossip, vaguely conscious of the perpetual ebb and flow and murmur of people in the Boulevard, while the setting sun turned Paris to a marvellous water-colour, all pale lucent tints, amber and alabaster and mother-of-pearl, with amethystine shadows.  Then, one by one, those of us who were dining elsewhere would slip away; and at a sign from Hippolyte the others would move indoors, and take their places down either side of the long narrow table, Childe at the head, his daughter Nina next him.  And presently with what a clatter of knives and forks, clinking of glasses, and babble of human voices the Cafe Bleu would echo.  Madame Chanve’s kitchen was not a thing to boast of, and her price, for the Latin Quarter, was rather high—­I think we paid three francs, wine included, which would be for most of us distinctly a prix-de-luxe.  But oh, it was such fun; we were so young; Childe was so delightful.  The fun was best, of course, when we were few, and could all sit up near to him, and none need lose a word.  When we were many there would be something like a scramble for good seats.

I ask myself whether, if I could hear him again to-day, I should think his talk as wondrous as I thought it then.  Then I could thrill at the verse of Musset, and linger lovingly over the prose of Theophile, I could laugh at the wit of Gustave Droz, and weep at the pathos ... it costs me a pang to own it, but yes, I’m afraid ...  I could weep at the pathos of Henry Muerger; and these have all suffered such a sad sea-change since.  So I could sit, hour after hour, in a sort of ecstasy, listening to the talk of Nina’s father.  It flowed from him like wine from a full measure, easily, smoothly, abundantly.  He had a ripe, genial voice, and an enunciation that made crystals of his words; whilst his range of subjects was as wide as the earth and the sky.  He would talk to you of God and man, of metaphysics, ethics, the last new play, murder, or change of ministry; of books, of pictures, specifically, or of the general principles of literature and painting; of people, of sunsets, of Italy, of the high seas, of the Paris streets—­of what, in fine, you pleased.  Or he would spin you yarns, sober, farcical, veridical, or invented.  And, with transitions infinitely rapid, he would be serious, jocose—­solemn, ribald—­earnest, flippant—­logical, whimsical, turn and turn about.  And in every sentence, in its form or in its substance, he would wrap a surprise for you—­it was the unexpected word, the unexpected assertion, sentiment, conclusion, that constantly arrived.  Meanwhile it would enhance your enjoyment mightily to watch his physiognomy, the movements of his great, grey, shaggy head, the lightening and darkening of his eyes, his smile, his frown, his occasional slight shrug or gesture.  But the oddest thing was this, that he could take as well as give; he could listen—­surely a rare talent in a monologist.  Indeed, I have never known a man who could make you feel so interesting.