tumult to the Cafe opposite where we swore eternal friendship over
_grogs americains_.

From this I do not mean you to infer that I was a devil of a fellow, the
mention of whose name spread a hush over godly families. God wot! I did
little harm. I only ate what Murger calls "the Blessed bread of gaiety,"
the food of youth. Remember, too, it was the first time in my life that
I had companions of my own age. Indeed, so nearly had I modelled myself
on Paragot the ever young, that my comrades laughed at my old fashioned
ideas, and I found myself hopelessly behind the times. Youth hops an
inch sideways and thinks it has leaped a mile ahead. All is vanity, even
youth.

'Tis a pleasant vanity though, on which the wise smile with regretful
indulgence; and therein lay the wisdom of Paragot.

"Ah! confounded little cock-sparrow--I haven't seen you for a week," he
said one morning, shaking me by the shoulders till my teeth chattered.
"What about the other little sparrow you neglected me for on Sunday? Is
she at least good-looking? A model? And she is a good girl and supports
her widowed mother and ten brothers and sisters, I suppose? And she
calls herself Fanchette? Narcisse, the lady of Monsieur Asticot's
affections has the singular name of Fanchette."

Whereupon Narcisse uncurled himself from slumber and planted himself on
his hindquarters in front of me and grinned at me with lolling tongue.

"But she is quite a different kind of girl from all the other models!" I
cried eagerly.

"What does she pose for?"

"Well--of course--you know how it is--" I stammered, reddening.

Paragot laughed and quoted something in Latin about an ingenuous boy.

"Would she be a fit companion for Blanquette and Narcisse and myself?"

Having deep convictions as to the essential virtues of Fanchette, I
swore that she could not disgrace so respectable a company.

"We will all picnic together in the woods of Fontainebleau on Sunday,"
said he.

We picnic-ed. Fanchette had no shynesses. She found Paragot peculiarly
diverting, and though I enjoyed the day prodigiously, I realised
afterwards that I had spent most of it in the company of Blanquette.

"My son," said he, "there never was a model so like all the other models
that have posed for the well-of-course-you-know-how-it-is, since the
world began."

A week later, when I found my particular friend Ewing, whom as a
tongue-tied Englishman I had relieved of many embarrassments, and for
whom I