Let us return to our shop on Rue Saint-Jacques. It was kept by a stout old fellow of some fifty years, as strong and bright and active as a young man, whose name was Hugonnet. He was a red-faced _compère_, hasty of speech and of gesture; his round, full, rubicund face exhaled health and good humor; his little round gray eyes had a slightly mischievous expression; his chin was beginning to become double, and his hair to turn gray; but Master Hugonnet worried little about that; so long as his place was well patronized, whether it was resorted to by cavaliers, bachelors, esquires, courtiers, people from the city, or even from the country, mattered little to him, if the customers paid promptly; for after a profitable day, the bath keeper rarely failed to go to the nearest wine shop, to regale and enjoy himself, whence he commonly returned home tipsy; he called it having "a little point." The peculiar feature of Master Hugonnet's intoxication was that it totally changed his disposition; and instead of intensifying his passions and his vices, as wine so generally does, it endowed him with qualities of which no one would ever have suspected him when he was sober, and deprived him entirely of those which distinguished him in his normal condition.--For instance, the bath keeper was far from patient; he lost his temper easily, was quick to quarrel, would never give way, and was always ready to fight. To be sure, when blows had once been exchanged, Hugonnet bore his adversary no malice, and would soon be laughing and drinking with him. But in his cups the old fellow became as gentle and timid as a child; disposed to do what anyone desired, he was easily moved to compassion for the misfortunes of his neighbor; and if anyone told him some pitiful tale, it was no uncommon thing to see him weep, and disturb the neighborhood by his groans as he stumbled home. That always indicated that the libations had been copious, the bumpers frequent, and that the bath keeper was completely drunk. Hugonnet was a widower and had but one child, a daughter, who, when our tale opens, had just reached her eighteenth year. Ambroisine was a fine girl, tall and strong, well set up and shapely. Her foot was not very small, but her calf was symmetrical and of good size; her hand might have been smaller, more tapering, but it was pink and white, and plump. Her bearing and her gestures were somewhat brusque at times, and gave her rather too disdainful an air; but her smile was so frank and pleasant that it excused any possible rudeness in her manner to persons who did not know her well.