During the intervals between the songs and recitations the room was noisy with laughter, talking, and the clinking of glasses. The one garçon was industriously serving boissons and yelling orders to the bar, where the fat woman sat industriously knitting, heedless, as might have been expected of the keeper of the Cave of Adullam, and awakening to activity only when the stentorian yells of the garçon's orders rose above the din of the establishment. Absinthe and beer formed the principal beverages, though, as a rule, absinthe was taken only just before a meal, and then it served as an appetizer,--a sharpener of hunger to these who had so little wherewithal to satisfy the hunger that unaided nature created! The mystery of the means by which these lighthearted Bohemians sustained their precarious existence was not revealed to me; yet here they sat, and laughed, and talked, and recited the poetry of their own manufacture, and sang their songs, and drank, and smoked their big pipes, and rolled cigarettes incessantly, happy enough in the hour of their lives, bringing hither none of the pains and pangs and numbing evidences of their struggles. And there was no touch of the sordid in the composite picture that they made, and a certain tinge of intellectual refinement, a certain spirituality that seemed to raise them infinitely above the plane of the lowly strugglers who won their honest bread by honest labor, shone about them as a halo. Their dark hours, no doubt, came with the daylight, and in these meetings at the cabaret they found an agreeable way in which to while away the dismal interval that burdened their lives when they were not asleep; for the cabaret was warm and bright, warmer and brighter than their own wretched little rooms au cinquième,--and coal and candles are expensive luxuries! Here, if their productions haply could not find a larger and more remunerative audience, they could at least be heard,--by a few, it is true, but a most appreciative few, and that is something of value equal to bread. And then, who could tell but what fame might unexpectedly crown them in the end? It has happened thus. "But why worry?" asked the musician. "'Laugh, and the world laughs with you. If we do not live a long life, it is at least a jolly one,' is our motto and certainly they gave it most faithful allegiance." I learned from Bishop that the musical director received three francs a night for his services. Should singers happen to be lacking, or should the evening be dull for other reason, he himself must sing and recite; for the tension of the Soleil d'Or must be kept forever taut. The old white-haired pianist received two francs a night, and each of these contributors to the gayety of the place was given a drink gratis. So there was at least some recompense besides the essential one of appreciation from the audience.