the shepherds and shepherdesses who resort there
this festive night. And it reminds me that only
this afternoon, I saw a shepherd in trouble,
tending this way, over the jagged stones of a
neighbouring street. A magnificent sight it
was, to behold him in his blouse, a feeble little
jog-trot rustic, swept along by the wind of two
immense gendarmes, in cocked-hats for which
the street was hardly wide enough, each, carrying
a bundle of stolen property that would not
have held his shoulder-knot, and clanking a sabre
that dwarfed the prisoner.

"Messieurs et Mesdames, I present to you
at this Fair, as a mark of my confidence in the
people of this so-renowned town, and as an act
of homage to their good sense and fine taste,
the Ventriloquist, the Ventriloquist! Further,
Messieurs et Mesdames, I present to you the
Face-Maker, the Physiognomist, the great
Changer of countenances, who transforms the
features that Heaven has bestowed upon him
into an endless succession of surprising and
extraordinary visages, comprehending, Messieurs
et Mesdames, all the contortions, energetic and
expressive, of which the human face is capable,
and all the passions of the human heart, as Love,
Jealousy, Revenge, Hatred, Avarice, Despair!
Hi hi, Ho ho, Lu lu, Come in!" To this effect,
with an occasional smite upon a sonorous kind of
tambourine—bestowed with a will, as if it
represented the people who won't come in—holds
forth a man of lofty and severe demeanour; a man
in stately uniform, gloomy with the knowledge he
possesses of the inner secrets of the booth.
"Come in, come in! Your opportunity presents
itself to-night; to-morrow it will be gone for
ever. To-morrow morning by the Express Train
the railroad will reclaim the Ventriloquist and
the Face-Maker! Algeria will reclaim the
Ventriloquist and the Face-Maker! Yes! For the
honour of their country they have accepted
propositions of a magnitude incredible, to appear in
Algeria. See them for the last time before their
departure! We go to commence on the instant.
Hi hi! Ho ho! Lu lu! Come in! Take the
money that now ascends, Madame; but after
that, no more, for we commence! Come in!"

Nevertheless, the eyes both of the gloomy
speaker and of Madame receiving sous in a muslin
bower, survey the crowd pretty sharply after the
ascending money has ascended, to detect any
lingering sous at the turning-point. "Come in,
come in! Is there any more money, Madame, on
the point of ascending? If so, we wait for it. If
not, we commence!" The orator looks back over
his shoulder to say it, lashing the spectators with
the conviction that he beholds through the folds
of the drapery into which he is about to plunge,
the Ventriloquist and the Face-Maker. Several
sous burst out of pockets, and ascend. " Come
up, then, Messieurs!" exclaims Madame in a
shrill voice, and beckoning with a bejewelled
finger. "Come up! This presses. Monsieur has
commanded that they commence!" Monsieur
dives into his Interior, and the last half-dozen
of us follow. His Interior is comparatively
severe; his Exterior also. A true Temple of
Art needs nothing but seats, drapery, a small
table with two moderator lamps hanging over it,
and an ornamental looking-glass let into the wall.
Monseiur in uniform gets behind the table and
surveys us with disdain, his forehead becoming
diabolically intellectual under the moderators.
"Messieurs et Mesdames, I present to you the
Ventriloquist. He will commence with the
celebrated Experience of the bee in the window.
The bee, apparently the veritable bee of Nature,
will hover in the window, and about the room.
He will be with difficulty caught in the hand of
Monsieur the Ventriloquist—he will escape—
he will again hover—at length he will be
recaptured by Monsieur the Ventriloquist, and
will be with difficulty put into a bottle.
Achieve then, Monsieur!" Here the proprietor
is replaced behind the table by the Ventriloquist,
who is thin and sallow, and of a weakly aspect.
While the bee is in progress, Monsieur the
Proprietor sits apart on a stool, immersed in
dark and remote thought. The moment the bee
is bottled, he stalks forward, eyes us gloomily
as we applaud, and then announces, sternly
waving his hand: "The magnificent Experience
of the child with the whooping-cough!" The
child disposed of, he starts up as before. "The
superb and extraordinary Experience of the
dialogue between Monsieur Tatambour in his
dining-room, and his domestic, Jerome, in the
cellar; concluding with the songsters of the
grove, and the Concert of domestic Farm-yard
animals." All this done, and well done, Monsieur
the Ventriloquist withdraws, and Monsieur the
Face-Maker bursts in, as if his retiring-room
were a mile long instead of a yard. A corpulent
little man in a large white waistcoat, with a
comic countenance, and with a wig in his hand.
Irreverent disposition to laugh, instantly checked
by the tremendous gravity of the Face-Maker,
who intimates in his bow that if we expect
that sort of thing we are mistaken. A very
little shaving-glass with a leg behind it is
handed in, and placed on the table before the
Face-Maker. "Messieurs et Mesdames, with
no other assistance than this mirror and this
wig, I shall have the honour of showing you
a thousand characters." As a preparation, the
Face-Maker with both hands gouges himself,
and turns his mouth inside out. He then
becomes frightfully grave again, and says to the
Proprietor, "I am ready!" Proprietor stalks
forth from baleful reverie, and announces "The
Young Conscript!" Face-Maker claps his wig
on, hind side before, looks in the glass, and
appears above it as a conscript so very
imbecile, and squinting so extremely hard, that
I should think the State would never get any
good of him. Thunders of applause. Face-
Maker dips behind the looking-glass, brings
his own hair forward, is himself again, is
awfully grave. "A distinguished inhabitant
of the Faubourg St. Germain." Face-Maker
dips, rises, is supposed to be aged, blear-eyed,
toothless, slightly palsied, supernaturally polite,
evidently of noble birth. " The oldest member
of the Corps of Invalides on the fête-day of his