"You seem inclined to jest, messieurs; but I would like to resemble this manikin. I mean, in the way he's dressed. Just see how beautifully that frock-coat fits his back! It must be delightful to be dressed like that! I would gladly pay sixty francs for a coat that squeezed my waist that way." "You can be squeezed for less than that. But you may set your mind at rest, young Pigeonnier; I assure you that you look a good deal like a manikin." Tobie glanced at Célestin with an expression that said: "You would be very glad to look like me!" At that moment, Albert halted in front of a cap and ribbon shop, in which he spied two rather attractive young women behind the counter. He exchanged meaning glances with one of them, while the mistress of the shop was trying caps on a decidedly plain person who had just come in, and who found none of them to her taste, because she could not make up her mind that any one of them made her pretty. As the throng about them became more dense, Tobie took his companions by the arm, saying: "If you stand still like this, messieurs, look out for your pockets. The Passage des Panoramas is very pretty, very brilliant, and much frequented; but I must warn you that it is one of the places where the greatest number of thefts is committed every day. When an honest bourgeois stops in front of Susse's shop, or in front of Marquis's wonderful _postiches_, if he doesn't keep his hands on his fob and his pockets all the time, he is sure to find himself minus watch, purse, handkerchief, and snuffbox. Between six and nine at night, when the promenaders are most numerous, the thefts are most frequent; at that time, you see in these galleries numbers of men in blouses and caps, who certainly have no business in this quarter, and who wouldn't walk in this passage unless they carried on a criminal industry here." "You are right, Tobie; and I can see at this moment some gentlemen with faces in which I should have very little confidence. Come, Albert, come--are you still in love with that shopgirl? Ah! I see our friends--and Dupétrain is with them! Good! we shall have some sport. He always has some extraordinary story to tell." "Who is Monsieur Dupétrain?" inquired Tobie. "Don't you know Dupétrain? Well, upon my word! All Paris knows him. He's a very good fellow--who is constantly having wonderful adventures. He's a frantic adept of magnetism. He'll put you to sleep, and make you walk in your sleep, if you like. Come, messieurs; come, I say!" Three young men, walking arm in arm, halted in front of Albert and his companions. They greeted one another with smiles, exchanging handshakes and puffs of tobacco smoke. The new-comers were: first, Mouillot, head clerk in a business house; a tall, fair-haired, red-cheeked youth, with an amiable, jovial face, whose appearance pointed him out at once as a bon vivant.