dressed woman-kind, the bestarred, beribboned,
be-Legion-of-Honoured, jewelled, crinolined,
lorgnetted, opera-cloaked, fanned, white-neck-
clothed, bouqueted, painted, perfumed,
pensioned throng. Two hooded figures were my
quarry. I waited and they came. My duty as an
escort was of brief duration. We talked a little; and
I kept the wall from slouching blouses. I heard
that the duchess looked pale, that the princess did
not wear her opal necklace, that the ambassador
was there with the baroness—that incorrigible
baroness!—as usual; that Caesar looked glum,
did not applaud, and spake not a word to
Calphurnia. I was told that Alboni had a cold, that
Mario did or did not give the chest-note which
he is paid, on calculation, seven hundred francs
per night for giving. Then we reached a tall
porte-cochère in the Rue de la Paix. I was
offered, and alternately accepted and refused, a
cup of tea; and, twenty minutes afterwards, I
returned to darkness, to the Place Ventadour,
and to myself.

Thus of the night. This was the morning: I
sauntered out, about eleven, to breakfast at a
crêmerie, or dairy—I had quite forgotten cafés
—in the Rue Neuve des Petits Champs; having
previously purchased a Constitutionnel—well-
nigh my only extravagance—at one of the little
glass advertising pagodas (alas for the Apsley
House Indicator!) on the Boulevards. The
crêmerie gave me a bowl of hot chocolate and
milk, nearly as big as a washhand basin, a hunk
of bread from a small clothes-basket, a pat of
butter about the size of a butterfly, and two
eggs sur le plat, simmering in a tin disc, for nine
sous. I was liberal with the remaining sou, and
gave it to the sturdy, red-cheeked Lorraine girl,
in a blue apron and sabots. There was always
the same little milliner from the Rue de Choiseul,
who came in for her chocolate, but brought her
bread with her, and a plump little garlic-
flavoured sausage, in a white pocket handkerchief.
There was always the same gloomy old man
in the cloak, who drank black coffee, said he
had been sub-prefect under the first Empire,
and informed me, in a husky under tone, that
affairs were going diablement mal. There occurred
always the same temporary diversion and mild
excitement when two gentlemen in blouses
quarrelled, and all but exchanged fisticuffs on
the disputed question as to who had first
engaged the Constitutionnel after me; who
became as brethren when I informed them that
the Constitutionnel was my own, and did not
belong to the crêmerie; and who were profuse
in compliments when I abandoned the journal
to them while I smoked my penny cigar.

Then out and about, and up and down, and
to and fro, but keeping chiefly to the back
streets, and, save on compulsion, avoiding the
gay Boulevards and the merry Rue St. Honoré.
Sometimes, especially in rainy weather, to the
Passage Choiseul, to look into the book-stalls,
the hairdressers' and statuary shops, and to read
the play-bills of the Bouffes Parisiens. Often
to an old dusty reading-room in the Rue St.
Anne, where they kept files of the Mercure de
France of Louis the Fourteenth's time, and the
Moniteur of the Reign of Terror, and to reading
these chronicles of the defunct time, and fancying
now that I saw the smooth abbés grimacing and
epigrammatising in Ninon's boudoir, and the
court lords kicking their red heels in the
Versaglian Bull's-eye; now that I heard Danton
thunder, and Marat yelp, and Robespierre whine
for blood. I would rather read a stenograph
report in the Moniteur, with "Danton rose and
said, 'I demand that——' " than the bravest
revolutionary history that was ever penned.
Sometimes to a famous old curiosity shop in the Rue
Louis-le-Grand, or to where they sell caricature-
statuettes in grey clay, somewhere in the back
settlements of the Palais Royal; sometimes to
the Place Louvois, to see the cantonniers and
cantonnières gambolling or "sky-larking" with
their brooms and shovels, at dinner-time; at last,
one very desolate morning, and by the blessing
of merciful good luck, to the Rue de Grammont,
where I came upon, radiant in his golden prime,
the good Caliph Haroun Alraschid.

Stay, was it in the Rue de Grammont, or the
adjoining street of Choiseul? It matters little.
There was a great Modes and Novelty
warehouse on one side, and a cabinet de lecture with
the titles of the last new works stuck on the
apothecary's labels all over the window panes,
on the other, and in the midst was the good
Haroun Alraschid. The Caliph kept a little
shop. There were his sign and title painted
bravely over the frontage, "Au Calife de
Bagdad," the cards and shop-bills bore his name
and his lithographed portrait, with orthodox
turban, caftan, beard, scimitar, and papouches;
but from that day to this I have not been able
to discover what connexion there could have
existed between the Commandery of the Faithful,
the brotherhood of the Sun and Moon, and the
wares that the Caliph vended in his tiny magasin.
There are many such inexplicable anomalies in
Paris. St. Augustine sells fleecy hosiery, and
the Prophet, in a cartoon twelve feet high,
competes with Prince Eugene in the confection of
cheap clothes. The Caliph of Bagdad was
likewise in the clothes line; but he was mantua-
maker to the Emperor of Lilliput. He supplied
Queen Mab with millinery. He measured
Mustardseed, and Peasblossom, and Cobweb, for
habiliments. He was modiste in ordinary to the
Infinitesimal world. Indeed, the good
Caliph Haroun Alraschid kept a dolls' wardrobe
shop.

Don't laugh at him—at me. Indeed he did.
Don't think his avocation mean and trivial.
He took his business quite seriously, and carried
it on in a grave and decorous manner,
entertaining clerks and demoiselles de comptoir,
keeping, I have no doubt, his books by double
entry, and having his strong-box to take care
of. Fancy a trader in dolls' clothes going
bankrupt! But I left the Caliph gay and
prosperous; and gay and prosperous I trust
he is, to this day. Surely the Bagdadian shop
was the most charming shop I ever saw in my life!
It beat the curiosity, and picture, and statuary