It was just like any other of the hundred and one fêtes that take place every summer in the environs of Paris. There was a merry-go-round and a greasy pole; there was a juggler who swallowed knives and ribbons; there were fortune-tellers without number; there were dining-booths, and drinking-booths, and dancing-booths; there were acrobats, organ-boys with monkeys, and Savoyards with white mice; there were stalls for the sale of cakes, fruit, sweetmeats, toys, combs, cheap jewelry, glass, crockery, boots and shoes, holy-water vessels, rosaries, medals, and little colored prints of saints and martyrs; there were brass bands, and string bands, and ballad-singers everywhere; and there was an atmosphere compounded of dust, tobacco-smoke, onions, musk, and every objectionable perfume under heaven. "Dine at the Restaurant de l'Empire, Messieurs," shouted a shabby touter in a blouse, thrusting a greasy card into our faces. "Three dishes, a dessert, a half-bottle, and a band of music, for one franc-fifty. The cheapest dinner in the fair!" "The cheapest dinner in the fair is at the Belle Gabrielle!" cried another. "We'll give you for the same money soup, fish, two dishes, a dessert, a half-bottle, and take your photograph into the bargain!" "Bravo! _mon vieux_--you first poison them with your dinner, and then provide photographs for the widows and children," retorts touter number one. "That's justice, anyhow." Whereupon touter number two shrieks out a torrent of abuse, and we push on, leaving them to settle their differences after their own fashion. At the next booth we are accosted by a burly fellow daubed to the eyes with red and blue paint, and dressed as an Indian chief. "_Entrez, entrez, Messieurs et Mesdames_" he cries, flourishing a war-spear some nine feet in length. "Come and see the wonderful Peruvian maiden of Tanjore, with webbed fingers and toes, her mouth in the back of her head, and her eyes in the soles of her feet! Only four sous each, and an opportunity that will never occur again!" "Only fifty centimes!" shouts another public orator; "the most ingenious little machine ever invented! Goes into the waistcoat pocket--is wound up every twenty-four hours--tells the day of the month, the day of the year, the age of the moon, the state of the Bourse, the bank rate of discount, the quarter from which the wind is blowing, the price of new-laid eggs in Paris and the provinces, the rate of mortality in the Fee-jee islands, and the state of your sweetheart's affections!"