After viewing the shrub, Tholomyès exclaimed, “I offer you asses!” and having agreed upon a price with the owner of the asses, they returned by way of Vanvres and Issy. At Issy an incident occurred. The truly national park, at that time owned by Bourguin the contractor, happened to be wide open. They passed the gates, visited the manikin anchorite in his grotto, tried the mysterious little effects of the famous cabinet of mirrors, the wanton trap worthy of a satyr become a millionaire or of Turcaret metamorphosed into a Priapus. They had stoutly shaken the swing attached to the two chestnut-trees celebrated by the Abbé de Bernis. As he swung these beauties, one after the other, producing folds in the fluttering skirts which Greuze would have found to his taste, amid peals of laughter, the Toulousan Tholomyès, who was somewhat of a Spaniard, Toulouse being the cousin of Tolosa, sang, to a melancholy chant, the old ballad _gallega_, probably inspired by some lovely maid dashing in full flight upon a rope between two trees:— “Soy de Badajoz, Amor me llama, Toda mi alma, Es en mi ojos, Porque enseñas, A tuas piernas. “Badajoz is my home, And Love is my name; To my eyes in flame, All my soul doth come; For instruction meet I receive at thy feet” Fantine alone refused to swing. “I don’t like to have people put on airs like that,” muttered Favourite, with a good deal of acrimony. After leaving the asses there was a fresh delight; they crossed the Seine in a boat, and proceeding from Passy on foot they reached the barrier of l’Étoile. They had been up since five o’clock that morning, as the reader will remember; but _bah! there is no such thing as fatigue on Sunday_, said Favourite; _on Sunday fatigue does not work_. About three o’clock the four couples, frightened at their happiness, were sliding down the Russian mountains, a singular edifice which then occupied the heights of Beaujon, and whose undulating line was visible above the trees of the Champs-Élysées. From time to time Favourite exclaimed:— “And the surprise? I claim the surprise.” “Patience,” replied Tholomyès. CHAPTER V—AT BOMBARDA’S The Russian mountains having been exhausted, they began to think about dinner; and the radiant party of eight, somewhat weary at last, became stranded in Bombarda’s public house, a branch establishment which had been set up in the Champs-Élysées by that famous restaurant-keeper, Bombarda, whose sign could then be seen in the Rue de Rivoli, near Delorme Alley.