It was a long, low room lighted by gas, with a table reaching from end to end. Round about this table, in various stages of conviviality and conversation, were seated some thirty or forty men, capped, bearded, and eccentric-looking, with all kinds of queer blouses and wonderful heads of hair. Dropping into a couple of vacant chairs at the lower end of this table, we called for a bottle of Chablis, lit our cigars, and fell in with the general business of the evening. At the top, dimly visible through a dense fog of tobacco smoke, sat a stout man in a green coat fastened by a belt round the waist. He was evidently the President, and, instead of a hammer, had a small bugle lying by his side, which he blew from time to time to enforce silence. Somewhat perplexed by the general aspect of the club, I turned to my companion for an explanation. "Is it possible," I asked, "that these amazing individuals are all artists and gentlemen?" "Artists, every one," replied Dalrymple; "but as to their claim to be gentlemen, I won't undertake to establish it. After all, the _Chicards_ are not first-rate men." "What are they, then?" "Oh, the Helots of the profession--hewers of wood engravings, and drawers of water-colors, with a sprinkling of daguerreotypists, and academy students. But hush--somebody is going to sing!" And now, heralded by a convulsive flourish from the President's bugle, a young _Chicard_, whose dilapidated outer man sufficiently contradicted the burthen of his song, shouted with better will than skill, a _chanson_ of Beranger's, every verse of which ended with:-- "J'ai cinquante écus, J'ai cinquante écus, J'ai cinquante écus de rente!"