Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive) [This etext contains both volumes of Sans-Cravate as well as Little Streams. (note of etext transcriber)] [Illustration: _Copyright Copyright 1903 by G. Barrie & Sons._ _THE QUARREL AT THE WINE SHOP_ _Bastringuette, with a violent wrench, released her arm from the hand that held it; and snatching a plate from the table, held it over Sans-Cravate's head, as if to strike him with it._] NOVELS BY Paul de Kock VOLUME III SANS-CRAVATE; OR, THE MESSENGERS VOL. I PRINTED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH [Illustration] GEORGE BARRIE'S SONS THE JEFFERSON PRESS BOSTON NEW YORK _Copyrighted, 1903-1904, by G. B. & Sons._ SANS-CRAVATE; OR, THE MESSENGERS I THE IDLERS.--BOULEVARD DES ITALIENS Three young men, arm in arm, were walking, or, to speak more accurately, loitering, along Boulevard des Italiens, looking to right and left, scrutinizing the women at close quarters, especially when they were pretty; commenting aloud on the face of one and the bearing of another, interspersing their reflections with jests, puns, foolish remarks, and bursts of laughter; and, lastly, smoking cigars, an accomplishment which is now indispensable to the young men of fashion whose ordinary promenade is the Boulevard de la Chaussée d'Antin. It is a little world in itself that frequents Boulevard des Italiens, a fashionable, aristocratic, eccentric boulevard, where, none the less, many of the promenaders affect manners, dress, and language which remind us forcibly of Diogenes. Each portion of a large city has its quarters, with their habitués and their residents, whose dress, language, and manners have their own peculiar characteristics. Thus, there is a marked difference between the costume of an annuitant of the Marais and that of the ex-young man of the Chaussée d'Antin; between the dress of a grande dame of Faubourg Saint-Germain and that of a bourgeois housewife of the Cité; between the grisette of Rue Saint-Jacques and her of Place Bréda, who has lately taken the name of lorette. Of course, the residents of one quarter do not remain altogether on their own territory, and they may sometimes be met with in a neighboring section. But, even then, a practised eye never makes a mistake; it recognizes the strangers at once, and does not confound them with the natives of the quarter. In vain do the former try to assume the bearing and manners of the latter--the natural instincts, when we try to drive them away, return at a gallop, and it would be as difficult for a government clerk who lives on Rue Saint-Antoine to resemble a clerk in a banking house on Rue Laffite, as for a siren of Place Maubert to copy the manners of a young lady of Faubourg Saint-Honoré.