What I loved most was to make my round among the tables and mingle closely with the worshippers. Of the men, clean and correct in their perfectly fitting flannels, sometimes stern, sometimes mocking, sometimes pettishly cross, I was rather shy; but I was quite at my ease with the women, even with those whose many rings and jewels, violent perfumes and daring effects of dress made me instinctively differentiate from their quieter and less bejewelled sisters. Blanquette laughingly called me a "_petit polisson_" and said that I made soft eyes at them. Perhaps I did. When one is a hundred and fifty it is hard to realise that one's little scarecrow boy's eyes may have touched the hearts of women. But the appeal of the outstretched tambourine was rarely refused. "Get out of this," the man would say. "But no. Remain. _Il a l'air si drôle_--what is your name?" "_Je m'appelle Asticot, Madame, à votre service._" This always amused the lady. She would search through an invariably empty purse. "Give him fifty centimes." And the man would throw a silver piece into the tambourine. Once I was in luck. The lady found a ten-franc piece in her purse. "That is all I have." "I have no change," growled the man. "If I give you this," said the lady, "what would you do with it?" "If Madame would tell me where to get it, I would buy a photograph of Madame," said I, with one of Paragot's "inspirations"; for she was very pretty. "_Voilà_," she laughed putting the gold into my hand. "_Tu me fais la cour, maintenant._ Come and see me at the Villa Marcelle and I will give you a photograph gratis." But Paragot when I repeated the conversation to him called the lady shocking names, and forbade me to go within a mile of the Villa Marcelle. So I did not get the photograph. The next best thing I loved was to see Blanquette's eyes glitter when I returned to the platform and poured silver and copper into her lap. She uttered strange little exclamations under her breath, and her fingers played caressingly with the coins. "We gain more here in a day than Père Paragot did in a week. It is wonderful. _N'est-ce pas, Maître?_" she said one morning. Paragot tuned his violin and looked down on her. "Money pleases you, Blanquette?" "Of course." She counted the takings sou by sou. "Yet you did not want to accept your just share." "What you make me take is not just, Master," she said, simply.