simple et fortifiante: which he enjoys at his
hotel, together with his lodging, for about
sixteen or eighteen shillings per week. The
simplicity of the food to be had at a student's
hotel, at this price, is as questionable, perhaps,
as its fortifying qualities. Yet, at dinner,
it includes two or three dishes, a dessert of
course, and wine. But then a cauliflower is
a course in itself, and a tea-spoonful of jelly
supports, unaided, the dignity of a dessert.
Still the student is gay at his dinner; and
will get up, between the courses, with one of
his companions, dance a polka round the
table, and resume his seat. He eats his
simple and fortifying fare, laughing at it all
the time. Perhaps this laughter helps his
digestion. We remember the ecstasies with
which a young fellow was one day received
at dinner, who had returned from the
Longchamps fair in the Champs Elysées, with the
intelligence that there was a living skeleton
exhibiting there, who, he said, had been
brought up at a student's hotel, on nourriture
simple et fortifiante. On another occasion the
production of an omelette au rhum caused a
great sensation at the same student's hotel: the
wild guests skipping round the table, shouting,
as they pointed to the effort of culinary genius,
"Ah! Quel luxe!" What a luxury!

The dinner conversation is interspersed generally
with medical and legal anecdotes. One
gentleman excuses his absence from a party
by the intelligence that he has a subject in
hand. And, considering that two medical
students are entitled only to five subjects
—as they delicately call them—per annum
between them, it will be seen that to be in
actual possession of one of these is to be in
luck's way entirely. "We have two bodies
and a half each," said a ghastly little student
to us one day, as he handed us the biscuit de
Rheims, which represented our dessert on the
occasion. It was fortunate that the subject
rapidly changed to one of punch. To get up
a punch party is, in the estimation of the
student, a highly pleasant way of finishing
an idle morning; and it is amusing to watch
the excitement with which the diners who
drop in to the table d'hôte are requested to
add their fifteen sous to the punch subscription.
A sufficient number of contributors
having been obtained, the best available
rooms are selected, and the contractor for the
entertainment proceeds to buy three or four
pounds of lump sugar, two or three bottles of
brandy, a bottle of Kirsch water, one of rum,
a heap of biscuits, and a huge baba! These
materials are arranged upon the mantelpiece
of the room selected for the entertainment;
the guests assemble, each man bringing his
own tumbler from his own washing-stand;
two or three walk up and down learning off
songs from bits of paper, with an excited
air; and the landlady sends up a message,
declaring that she will not allow any singing
on the part of messieurs les locataires after
eleven o'clock. This message is received
with shouts of derision; the young fellows
skip about the ponch bol (which is
the French-English for a common brown
earthenware pan); examine the contents
of the bottles; and stop every man who
begins a song, by declaring that he is
anticipating the entertainment. Then the
master of the ceremonies opens the
proceedings by making a kettleful of green
tea over a spirit lamp. This
accomplished, he half fills the bowl with sugar;
then empties a bottle of brandy and a
considerable quantity of rum upon it. The next
proceeding is to light the spirit. This
accomplished, all the candles are extinguished, and
to the glare of the blue flame from the punchbowl,
which mounts a considerable height,
the wild young fellows open their concert.
As they gesticulate and shout about the
bowl, they look like the burlesque demons,
blue and tinselled, which are the delight of
children in the opening of a Christmas
pantomime. Their songs are chiefly laments over
the degenerate days of the old Quartier Latin.

The punch having burned for about three
quarters of an hour, is ladled out to the guests;
pipes are lighted; and lively conversation is
carried on. Suddenly it is suggested that
the hour for dancing has arrived. The door
of an adjoining room is thrown open,
disclosing an apartment regularly cleared for a
polka. A stranger instantly wonders where
the ladies are coming from; but he is soon
relieved from any doubt by an invitation
from one of the young men to dance with him.
The night is warm; the windows are thrown
open; the students remove their coats; and
then, to the fiddle of a fellow-student, dance
a quadrille among themselves. The quadrille
is followed by a polka; and then the second
bowl of punch is lighted—this time a bowl of
Kirsch punch. Then the great cake or baba
is cut up and demolished, amid practical jokes,
usually played in England by children not
exceeding the age of twelve. And then
follow songs; and eau-de-vie de Dantzig;
and romping; and the usual consequences of
punch. With a light song, however, and a
steady candlestick, the gay fellows skip off
to bed, pushing and playing practical jokes
upon one another, as they run up the broad
staircase of the hotel.

END OF VOLUME THE NINTH

Published at the Office, No. 16, Wellington Street North, Strand. Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS , Whitefriars, London