I should infer there is no police regulation to restrain shop-keepers from placing goods outside their doors. The side-paths, though often of scant width, are in sundry places occupied by stalls for the exhibition of miscellaneous articles—calicoes, fish, poultry, meal, flour, fruit, and vegetables, with glass cases of combs and cutlery. To all appearance, any one may set down a stall anywhere, commence to sell articles by auction, or draw a crowd about him as a tooth-extractor, or curer of corns. All goes on in public. The pedicurist, a well-dressed gentlemanly looking personage, takes his stand behind a table and chair. He lays out his instruments. Harangues the masses as to what he has done, and what he can do for them. He has cured the most inveterate corns in all the courts of Europe. He shews a string of eight gold medals given to him in gratitude by emperors, kings, queens, and princesses. He has been sent for to Moscow. He has cured corns in the Kremlin. He points exultingly to a large picture hung on a pole behind him, representing the members of a royal family, each with a bare foot on a richly embroidered cushion preparatory to be operated on, and all of whom he cured one after the other, not a vestige of corn remaining. And he is prepared this instant to cure the worst possible corn of any monsieur or mademoiselle present, _sans souffrance_—insists greatly on that—_oui, messieurs, sans souffrance; certainement sans souffrance_, for the insignificant charge of _cinquante centimes_! One can scarcely fail to be diverted with the volubility, the audacity, and the antics of these wandering charlatans, who remind us of characters inimitably touched off in the brilliant comedies of Molière. [Illustration: Promenade du Midi, looking north-eastwards.]