eccentric dances, was the most reckless in the sportive circle, the
highest kicker at the Bullier, and, most of all, in that she had no
lovers. Unlike the Mimi Pinsons of the Murger era of the quarter,
Fouchette was the most notorious of grisettes without being a
grisette. At the fete of the student painters at the Bullier she had
been borne on a palanquin clad only in a garland of roses amid
thousands of vociferous young people of both sexes. The same night she
had kicked a young man's front teeth out for presuming on liberties
other girls of her set would have considered trifling.

Fouchette at once became the reigning sensation of "la vie joyeuse."
Having had little or no pleasure in the world up to her entree here,
she had plunged into the gayety of the quarter with an abandon that
within two short months had made the Bohemian tales of Henri Murger
tame reading.

Her pedal dexterity in a quarrel had won for her the sobriquet of "La
Savatiere."

The "savate" as practised by the French boxer is the art of using the
feet the same as the hands, and it is a means of offence not to be
despised. It is the feline art that utilizes all four limbs in combat.
Fouchette acquired it in her infancy,--in the fun and frequent
scrimmages of the quarter she found occasion to practise it. Mlle.
Fouchette's temper was as eccentric as her dances.

On the wall of Mlle. Fouchette's room hung a rude crayon of that
damsel by a prominent caricaturist. It was a front view of her face,
in which the artist had maliciously accentuated, in a few bold
strokes, the feline fulness of jaws, the half-contracted eyelids, the
alert eyes, and general catlike expression,--to be seen only when
Mlle. Fouchette was in anger. It was the subtle touch of the master,
and was labelled "La Petite Chatte."

"Ah, ce!" she would say to curious visitors,--"it is not me; it is the
mind of Leandre."

As Mlle. Fouchette stood tiptoeing before a little folding mirror on
the high mantel, the reflection showed both front and sides of a face
that betrayed none of these characteristics. In fact, the blonde hair,
smoothed flat to the skull and draping low over the ears, after the
fashion set by a popular actress of the day, gave her the demure look
of a young woman who might shriek at the sight of a man in his
shirt-sleeves. Which shows that it is exceedingly unsafe to judge by
appearances,--of a woman, especially. The slender figure showed that
the physical indicatio