By a searching glance I detected a place where I would not be too much crowded. So I went and sat down by the side of a man who seemed to me to be old, and who smoked a half-penny clay pipe, which had become as black as coal. From six to eight beer saucers were piled up on the table in front of him, indicating the number of "bocks" he had already absorbed. With that same glance I had recognized in him a "regular toper," one of those frequenters of beer-houses, who come in the morning as soon as the place is open, and only go away in the evening when it is about to close. He was dirty, bald to about the middle of the cranium, while his long gray hair fell over the neck of his frock coat. His clothes, much too large for him, appeared to have been made for him at a time when he was very stout. One could guess that his pantaloons were not held up by braces, and that this man could not take ten paces without having to pull them up and readjust them. Did he wear a vest? The mere thought of his boots and the feet they enveloped filled me with horror. The frayed cuffs were as black at the edges as were his nails. As soon as I had sat down near him, this queer creature said to me in a tranquil tone of voice: "How goes it with you?" I turned sharply round to him and closely scanned his features, whereupon he continued: "I see you do not recognize me." "No, I do not." "Des Barrets." I was stupefied. It was Count Jean des Barrets, my old college chum. I seized him by the hand, so dumfounded that I could find nothing to say. I, at length, managed to stammer out: "And you, how goes it with you?" He responded placidly: "With me? Just as I like." He became silent. I wanted to be friendly, and I selected this phrase: "What are you doing now?" "You see what I am doing," he answered, quite resignedly. I felt my face getting red. I insisted: "But every day?" "Every day is alike to me," was his response, accompanied with a thick puff of tobacco smoke. He then tapped on the top of the marble table with a sou, to attract the attention of the waiter, and called out: "Waiter, two 'bocks.'" A voice in the distance repeated: "Two 'bocks,' instead of four." Another voice, more distant still, shouted out: "Here they are, sir, here they are." Immediately there appeared a man with a white apron, carrying two 'bocks,' which he set down foaming on the table, the foam running over the edge, on to the sandy floor. Des Barrets emptied his glass at a single draught and replaced it on the table, sucking in the drops of beer that had been left on his mustache. He next asked: "What is there new?" "I know of nothing new, worth mentioning, really," I stammered: "But nothing has grown old for me; I am a commercial man." In an equable tone of voice, he said: "Indeed--does that amuse you?" "No, but what do you mean by that? Surely you must do something!" "What do you mean by that?" "I only mean, how do you pass your time!"