This was my first night at a _bal musette_ and my last in that year, for shortly afterwards I left for Italy and in Italy one does not dance. But the next season found me anxious to renew the adventure, to again enjoy the pleasures of the _bal musette_. I have said I was perhaps wrong in recalling the street as the Rue Jessaint, or perhaps the old _maison_ had disappeared. At any rate, when I searched I could not find the _bal_, not even the bar. So again I appealed for help, this time to a chauffeur, who drove me to the opposite side of the city, to the _quartier_ of the _Halles_.... And I was beginning to think that the man had misunderstood me, or was stupid. "He will take me to a cabaret, l'Ange Gabriel or"--and I rapidly revolved in my mind the possibilities of this quarter where the _apaches_ come to the surface to feel the purse of the tourist, who buys drinks as he listens to stories of murders, some of which have been committed, for it is true that some of the real _apaches_ go there (I know because my friend Fernand did and it was in l'Ange Gabriel that he knocked all the teeth down the throat of Angelique, _sa gigolette_. You may find the life of these creatures vividly and amusingly described in that amazing book of Charles-Henry Hirsch, "Le Tigre et Coquelicot" It is the only book I have read about the _apaches_ of modern Paris that is worth its pages). But the idea of l'Ange Gabriel was not amusing to me this evening and I leaned forward to ask my chauffeur if he had it in mind to substitute another attraction for my desired _bal musette_. His reply was reassuring; it took the form of a gesture, the waving of a hand towards a small lighted globe depending over the door of a little _marchand de vin_. On this globe was painted in black letters the single word, _bal_. We were in the narrow Rue des Gravilliers--I was there for the first time--and the _bal_ was the Bal des Gravilliers. The bar is so small, when one enters, that there is no intimation of the really splendid aspect of the dancing room. For here there are two rooms separated by the dancing floor, two halls filled with tables, with long wooden benches between them. Benches also line the walls, which are white with a grey-blue frieze; the lighting is brilliant. The musicians play in a little balcony, and here there are two of them, an accordionist and a guitarist. The performer on the accordion is a _virtuoso_; he takes delight in winding florid ornament, after the manner of some brilliant singer impersonating Rosina in _Il Barbiere_, around the melodies he performs. As in the Rue Jessaint a _sou_ is demanded in the middle of each dance. But there comparison must cease, for the life here is gayer, more of a character. The types are of the _Halles_.... There are strange exits....