Often did I go without my dinner, being quite satisfied with boiled eggs and bread and butter, which I could have at home without toiling down and toiling up five flights of stairs that led to my room. Sometimes I went with some of my young friends _hors de la barrière_, that is, outside Paris, outside the barrier where the _octroi_ has to be paid on meat, wine, &c. Here the food was certainly better for the price I could afford to pay, but the society was sometimes peculiar. I remember once seeing a strange lady sitting not very far from me, who was the well-known Louve of Eugène Sue’s _Mystères de Paris_. One of my companions on these expeditions was Karl de Schloezer, who was then studying Arabic in Paris. He was always cheerful and amusing, and a delightful companion. He knew much more of the world than I did, and often surprised me by his diplomatic wisdom. “Let us stand up for each other,” he said one day; “you say all the good you can of me, I saying all the good I can of you.” I became very fierce at the time, charging him with hypocrisy and I do not know what. He, however, took it all in good part, and we remained friends all the time he was at Paris, and indeed to the day of his death. He was very fond of music, but I was, perhaps, the better performer on the pianoforte. He had invited me, a violin, and violoncello, to play some of Mozart’s and Beethoven’s Sonatas. Alas! when we found that he murdered his part, I sat down and played the whole evening, leaving him to listen, not, I fear, in the best of moods. He took his revenge, however; and the next time he asked me and the two other musicians to his room, we found indeed everything ready for us to play, but our host was nowhere to be found. He maintained that he had been called away; I am certain, however, that the little trick was played on purpose.