Monsieur Bagasse, meanwhile, resuming his equanimity, stood sighting beyond the muzzle of an invisible cannon, as if the door was the mark, looking very much like some slovenly, awkward old artilleryman, of an uncouth pattern, and not at all like a fencing-master. The door flew open presently with a bang, letting in two smart young men not yet out of their teens, who swaggered forward with a very rakish, gasconading air. Milk street clerks—Fisk and Palmer by name—snobbish in dress and rude in manners. “Bon swor, Monsoor,” said Palmer, loud and patronizing. This address, couched in a purely domestic French, was intended both as an elegant recognition of the nationality of Monsieur Bagasse, and as a way of bidding him good morning. The old man, who with ready politeness had silently saluted the new comers upon their entrance, surveyed the speaker over the rims of his round goggles, with open mouth, and an odd smile on his upturned visage. “Ha, Miss’r Pammer,” he said with vivacity, “you zink ze day is gone, eh?” Palmer, who was taking off his coat, stopped and stared. “I don’t understand you, Monsoor,” he rejoined; “I’m going to take my lesson.” “Hah! Zat is well,” said the old man. “But you say, _bon soir_, Miss’r Pammer. Zat is, good night. You intend _bon jour_; zat is, good day.” Palmer, seeing the grotesque, good-natured face of the fencing-master smiling at him, and beginning to comprehend what his domestic French had meant, grinned rather foolishly, and turned off. His companion, who stood in his shirtsleeves with a wire-mask already on his face, burst into a rude guffaw at the blunder, and slapped him on the back with a fencing-glove. It may be mentioned here that these young cubs, in process of getting their taste for the wolf’s milk of trade, had come upon the heady wine of Dumas’ “Three Guardsmen”—which admirable romance had so intoxicated their ardent fancy with excited day-dreams of D’Artagnan and Porthos, that, filled with the spirit of the sword, they had resolved to take fencing-lessons of Monsieur Bagasse. This practical recognition of the literary genius of the great French mulatto, was one incident in their joint career. Another, not so creditable, was their participation in a mob of clerks and salesmen, who not long before had brawled down an orator of Dumas’ own color—Frederick Douglass—at the Thompson meeting in Faneuil Hall. It is to be feared that the gallant Alexandre himself would have fared no better at their hands, or their employers’ either, had he ever been fool enough to leave the democratic streets of Paris, for the color-phobic pavements of Boston.