I saw a man standing before one of the posts which bore the lamps, considering it with a profoundly absorbed air. From his disturbed looks, I thought he was seeking the solution of some grave problem. This man was the friend of the people. Having turned his head, he noticed me. "Monsieur," said he to me, "the oil employed in fêtes like this costs twenty sous a litre. In a litre is enough to fill twenty lamps like those which you see there: hence each lamp consumes a sou's worth of oil. Now, this post has sixteen rows of eight lamps each: a hundred and twenty-eight lamps in all. Besides--follow my calculations closely--I have counted sixty similar posts in the avenue, which makes seven thousand six hundred and eighty lamps and, consequently, seven thousand six hundred and eighty sous, or, in other words, three hundred and eighty-four francs." While speaking thus, the friend of the people gesticulated, emphasizing the figures, bending down his tall body as if to bring himself within the reach of my feeble understanding. When he paused, he threw himself back triumphantly; then, he folded his arms, looking me in the face with a penetrating air. "Three hundred and eighty-four francs' worth of oil," cried he, putting a pause between each syllable, "and the poor people are without bread, Monsieur! I ask of you, and I ask it of you with tears in my eyes, if it would not be more honorable for humanity to distribute these three hundred and eighty-four francs among the three thousand indigent people contained in this faubourg? Such a charitable measure would give to each one of them about two sous and a half's worth of bread. This thought is well calculated to make tender souls reflect, Monsieur." Seeing that I stared at him curiously, he continued, in a drawling voice, the while securing his gloves on his hands: "The poor man should not laugh, Monsieur. He is altogether dishonest if he forgets his poverty for an hour. Who then will weep over the misfortunes of the people, if the government often gives such saturnalias as this?" He wiped away a tear and left me. I saw him enter the shop of a wine merchant, where he drowned his emotion in five or six glasses of claret, taking one after the other over the counter. The last light of the fair had just been extinguished; the crowd had dispersed. In the vacillating brightness of the street lamps, I now saw wandering beneath the trees only a few dark forms, couples of belated lovers, drunkards and sergents de ville airing their melancholy. The booths stretched away, gray and silent, on both borders of the avenue, like the tents of a deserted encampment.