We took the omnibus and crossed the river and went up the Grands Boulevards, an unusual excursion for Paragot who kept obstinately to the Boulevard Saint-Michel and the poorer streets of the _quartier_, through fear, I believe, of meeting friends of former days. A restaurant outside the Porte Saint-Martin provided a succulent meal. The place was crowded. Two young soldiers sat at our table, and listened awe-stricken to Paragot's conversation and were prodigiously polite to Blanquette, who, they discovered, was from Normandy, like themselves. And when they asked, after the frank manner of their kind, which of us had the honour to be the lover of Mademoiselle, and she cried with scarlet face, "But neither, Monsieur!" we all shouted together and laughed and became the best friends in the world. Happy country of fraternity! The little soldiers--they were dragoons and wore helmets too big for them and long horsehair plumes--accompanied us with clanking sabres to the gallery of the theatre, and at Paragot's invitation sat one on each side of Blanquette, who, what with the unaccustomed bloodshed of the spectacle and the gallantry of her neighbours, passed an evening of delirious happiness. In those days I had an æsthetic soul above the 'Eventreurs de Paris,' and I made fun of it to Paragot, whose thoughts were far away. When I perceived this, I kept my withering sarcasm to myself, and realised that a flattened man cannot be blown like a bladder into permanent rotundity even by the faith and affection of a little art-student. But I marvelled all the more at his gaiety during the intervals, when we all went outside into the thronged boulevard and drank bocks on the terrace of the café, and I learned how great a factor in the continued existence of humanity is the Will-to-Laugh, which I think the German philosopher has omitted from his system. I mention this incident to show how Paragot defied the effects of the steam roller and became outwardly himself again. He did not visit the Café Delphine that night, but went soberly home with Blanquette, and I believe read himself to sleep with his tattered odd volume of Montesquieu. The following evening however found him in his usual seat under the lee of Madame Boin's counter, arguing on art, literature and philosophy and consuming a vast quantity of ill-assorted alcohols. And then his life resumed its normal course. It was about this time that Madame Boin seeing in Paragot an attractive adjunct to her establishment and, with a Frenchwoman's business instinct, desiring to make it permanent, paralysed him by an offer of marriage. "Madame," said he, as soon as he had recovered, "if I accepted the great honour which you propose, you would doubtless require me to abandon certain personal habits which are dear to me, and also to trim my hair and beard and cut my finger-nails of whose fantastic length I am inordinately proud." "I think I should ask you to cut your nails," said Madame Boin reflectively.