Through a novel published some years ago, under the title of _Qui Perd Gagne_, I made the acquaintance of a number of Parisians who committed all manner of faults and follies, got into all kinds of dilemmas; and yet compelled a certain sympathy by reason of their good-heartedness and good humour. Never a dull moment in this novel; never, indeed, a moment when there was not some anxious situation to face, some formidable difficulty to overcome. The leading personages were a retired _blanchisseuse_ and her husband. Their names I cannot recall—let them be christened the Belons; and let it be admitted that the atmosphere in which they lived would most assuredly be condemned by the orthodox English critic as “unsavoury.” Laid bare before us in all its tawdriness, all its feverishness, all its swift delirious ups and downs, was the life of the adventurer. A good round dozen of these gentlemen, but the most “enterprising,” the most audacious, the most entertaining amongst them was our friend Belon, who, before becoming the husband of the _blanchisseuse_, and the master of the money realised by the sale of the _blanchisserie_, had been a seedy figure in shady newspaper offices and suspicious gambling clubs. In his unmarried days Belon rejoiced when a bet at baccarat, or a successful operation in the line of canvassing for advertisements, yielded him a louis. He was always “hard up”—always (as he described it) in a “crisis”—but adversity neither disheartened him nor turned his temper. “Times will change,” predicted Belon, when he surveyed his shabby form in the mirror of a café. “One of these days you will dine magnificently at Paillard’s,” Belon murmured, when he issued forth (his hunger still unsatisfied) from a greasy restaurant. “Paris,” he soliloquised, as he swaggered along the boulevards, with a shocking little black cigar in the corner of his mouth, and his hat tilted rakishly on one side, “Paris, I know you well—know your weaknesses, your failings, your vanities. And with this precious knowledge to assist me, I shall undoubtedly succeed.”