go back in fancy without difficulty to the year 1850.

In this year I was making a prolonged stay in Paris. I was very much
in love with a young lady who, though she returned my passion, so far
yielded to the wishes of her parents that she had promised not to see
me or to correspond with me for a year. I, too, had been compelled to
accede to these conditions under a vague hope of parental approval.
During the term of probation I had promised to remain out of the
country and not to write to my dear one until the expiration of the
year.

Naturally the time went heavily with me. There was not one of my own
family or circle who could tell me of Alice, and none of her own folk
had, I am sorry to say, sufficient generosity to send me even an
occasional word of comfort regarding her health and well-being. I
spent six months wandering about Europe, but as I could find no
satisfactory distraction in travel, I determined to come to Paris,
where, at least, I would be within easy hail of London in case any
good fortune should call me thither before the appointed time. That
'hope deferred maketh the heart sick' was never better exemplified
than in my case, for in addition to the perpetual longing to see the
face I loved there was always with me a harrowing anxiety lest some
accident should prevent me showing Alice in due time that I had,
throughout the long period of probation, been faithful to her trust
and my own love. Thus, every adventure which I undertook had a fierce
pleasure of its own, for it was fraught with possible consequences
greater than it would have ordinarily borne.

Like all travellers I exhausted the places of most interest in the
first month of my stay, and was driven in the second month to look for
amusement whithersoever I might. Having made sundry journeys to the
better-known suburbs, I began to see that there was a _terra
incognita_, in so far as the guide book was concerned, in the social
wilderness lying between these attractive points. Accordingly I began
to systematise my researches, and each day took up the thread of my
exploration at the place where I had on the previous day dropped it.

In the process of time my wanderings led me near Montrouge, and I saw
that hereabouts lay the Ultima Thule of social exploration--a country
as little known as that round the source of the White Nile. And so I
determined to investigate philosophically the chiffonier--his habitat,
his life, and his means of life.