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You may turn up the bottoms of your trousers, if you like anything to look a little slangy." "Is that necessary?" "Indispensable at all events in the honorable society of Les Chicards." "Les Chicards!" I repeated. "What are they?"
"Are you for a billiard-room or a lobster supper? Or shall we beat up the quarters of some of the fellows in the Quartier Latin, and see what fun is afoot on the other side of the water?" "Whichever you please. You are my guest to-night, and I am at your disposal." "Or what say you to dropping in for an hour among the Chicards?"
"Is it possible," I asked, "that these amazing individuals are all artists and gentlemen?" "Artists, every one," replied Dalrymple; "but as to their claim to be gentlemen, I won't undertake to establish it. After all, the Chicards are not first-rate men." "What are they, then?"
It is not every morning of my life, let me tell you, that I have seven francs to throw away on my personal appearance." "But then the ring that the lady took from her finger?" "And the murder?" "And the servant in black?" "And the hundred scudi?" "One great invention from beginning to end, Messieurs les Chicards, and being got up expressly for your amusement, I hope you liked it.
"But," he added, "I am willing to relate an adventure that happened to myself in Rome two winters ago, if my honorable brother Chicards will be pleased to hear it."
As we approached, he turned and recognised us. It was Herr Franz Müller, the story-telling student of the Chicards club. "Good-afternoon, gentlemen," said he, lifting his red cap, and letting it fall back again a little on one side. "We do not see many such sunsets in the course of the summer."
Garçon? another grog au vin, and sweeter than the last!" It would be difficult to say whether the Chicards were most disappointed or delighted at this dénoûment disappointed at its want of fact, or delighted with the story-weaving power of Herr Franz Müller. They expressed themselves, at all events, with a tumultuous burst of applause, in the midst of which we rose and left the room.
Ah me! those nights at the debating club, those evenings at the Chicards, those student's balls at the Chaumière, those third-class trips to Versailles and Fontainebleau, those one-franc pit seats at the Gaîeté and the Palais Royal, those little suppers at Pompon's and Flicoteau's how delightful they were! How joyous! How free from care!
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."
All was mirth, all was life, all was amusement and dissipation both in-doors and out-of-doors, in the "care-charming" city of Paris on that pleasant September night; and we, of course, were gay and noisy, like our neighbors. Dalrymple and Müller could scarcely be called new acquaintances. They had met some few times at the Chicards, and also, some years before, in Rome.
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