to the dancers of the coming piece. Then the
musicians rest on their instruments while the two men in authority on
the floor set up a stentorian call of "Advance, mesdames and
messieurs: one is about to begin the waltz," or the polka, as the name
of the coming dance may be. At this cry, through the little gates
which open here and there in the wooden railing a crowd of eager
clients pour upon the floor and range themselves in place. The men in
authority coolly proceed to collect a tax of two sous from each
couple, and then the music and the dance begin. In waltzing the
dancers simply put their arms around each other's necks, and thus
embracing vigorously, face to face, they spin about the room, bumping
against each other, laughing, shouting and chaffing. Waiters in white
aprons dodge about among the dancers, taking orders for wine, beer and
punch, and exciting our constant amazement that they do not get
knocked down and trampled on. One of them approaches us and asks what
we will take. Observe, he does not ask if we will take anything, for
if you sit you must "consume" either drink or cigars. Your five cents
paid at the door, you perceive, entitle you to neither a seat nor a
dance. The constant drinking which goes on is the heaviest source of
income of the establishment, after all. Yet nobody is drunk. In New
York a like amount of guzzling would have put half the men under the
table by this time. It is a popular notion that Frenchmen _never_ get
drunk, but this exaggerates the truth. One sees almost as much
drunkenness among the lower classes in Paris as in New York, but the
amount of drunkenness is so trifling in proportion to the enormous
amount of tippling that goes on among Frenchmen that the matter is a
cause of constant wonderment to visitors from other lands.

At the end of the waltz the floor is promptly cleared again. One woman
puts her hand on the rail-fence and leaps over unconcernedly, rather
than take her turn at the gate. Then the band strikes up the opening
strain of the popular opera-bouffe quadrille of the hour, and the air
echoes with the shout on every side, "C'est Angot! C'est Angot!" and
the struggle for places is furious. "Madame Angot," the heroine of a
fashionable opera-bouffe, is a market-woman, and a sort of goddess
among the blousards, who are eager to dance to the inspiring melody of
her song. The men in authority have little need to persuade the
dancers with their cry of "Avancez! avancez!"