Chapter III: "Tipsy dance and jollity."--L'Allegro (3)

Guguste, however, was a lad of spirit, and could hunger cheerfully under the housekeeping of the kind-hearted Madame Grégoire, who made up for the scantiness of her cheer by the abundance of her cheerfulness, buttered her parsnips with fine words, and gave the poor half-clothed _gamin_ the place nearest the _chauffrette_, (fire she had none,) while Mademoiselle Berthe made the apartment on the second floor too hot to hold him. Madame Grégoire,--whose only daughter was the wife of a puppet-showman, and whose only grandson, a seller of sparrows _rouged et noired_ into bullfinches, or white-washed into canaries, on the Pont Neuf,--transferred a considerable portion of her unclaimed dividends of maternal tenderness to the little orphan. Her son was a soldier, serving (as she said) at Algiers in the Indies, and by no means likely to enter into rivalship with the slave of Monsieur Georges and Mademoiselle Berthe's household.

"'Tis a strange thing, my dear child," mumbled the old woman to Guguste, as they sat down together one day to their six o'clock soup, (a composition of hot water, cabbage-stalks, half an ounce of bacon, and a peck of salt,) "that so long as I have held the string[29] in this house, not a drop of wine, either in piece or bottle, has ever gone through the gateway to the address of Monsieur Georges! Every month comes the supply of chocolate from Marquise's for Monsieur, and from the Golden Bee a cargo of Bourbon coffee and beetroot sugar for the housekeeper; but of wine not a pint."

"Neither Georges nor the Dragon are honest souls enough to trust themselves with their cups," said the knowing _gamin_. "Wine tells truth, they say. None but an ass talks now-a-days of truth lying at the bottom of a well;--'tis in the bottom of a hogshead of claret. Ma'mselle Berthe, who can do nothing but lie, is the liar in the well. _She_ can't keep her head above water."

"But Monsieur Georges, who need entertain no fear of making too free with his own secrets after a glass or two, inasmuch as no living mortal ever dips with him in the dish;--surely Monsieur might indulge on Sundays, and fête days, and the like?"

"And so he does indulge, Maman Grégoire,--so he does! Some folks like their champagne, some their burgundy. Master loves to take an internal hot-bath after the English fashion."

"A tea-drinker? _sacristie!_ what effeminacy!" exclaimed the old woman, bravely swallowing, out of a spoon of _métal d'Alger_, a large mouthful of tepid cabbage water. "I recollect seeing tea made upon the stage, in the farce of 'Madame Pochet et Madame Gibou.' _Jésu!_ what nastiness! I really wonder at Monsieur Georges! So spruce and so cleanly a gentleman as he looks, when, every evening just as St. Philip's church chimes the half-hour after seven, '_Le cordon, s'il vous plait_,' gives me notice of his exit! His superfine blue coat and garnet-coloured velvet waistcoat without a speck of dust upon them!"

"Thanks to _me_!" interposed Guguste.

"His _toupet_ shining with _huile antique_."

"Thanks to _me_!" continued Guguste.

"His boots varnished like looking-glasses."

"Thanks to _me_!" pursued Guguste.

"His hat smoothed as with an iron."

"Thanks to _me_,--thanks to _me_!"

"His _jabot_ plaited as if by machinery, and white as snow; while his great diamond studs look out like eyes of fire from the frilling,--"

"Thank to--no, not thanks to _me_!" cried Guguste. "I must own that Ma'mselle Berthe, who is so much in the starch line, still presides in the washing and ironing department; and, as to the brilliants, which you say shine in the dark like cats' eyes, master keeps them like the apple of his own."

"I wonder what makes him so wonderful particular about his dress after nightfall?" said Madame Grégoire, peering through her spectacles into the face which she was preparing to cross-examine. "Humph?"

"Can't say," replied Guguste, tilting the soup-tureen to transfer the last drop of warm salt-water to his own plate.

"You mean _won't_; you _could_ fast enough if you would, child!" said Madame Grégoire pettishly.

"Bah!" cried the _gamin_, (who was perhaps of opinion that the kicks, which, more than half-pence, constituted his salary in Monsieur Georges's service, formed a tie upon his discretions,)--"how can _you_, Ma'me Grégoire, who are such a very sensible woman, imagine it possible, that while I am clearing away the dinner things down stairs in the porter's lodge, or up stairs in Ma'mselle Berthe's chamber, I can have an eye to master's proceedings after he has crossed his threshold! Maybe he goes to the opera."

"Three nights in the week. But the other four?"

"There are fifteen theatres open, as I've heard tell, in the city and the suburbs," quoth Guguste drily.

"But, gentlemen as _is_ gentlemen (which is what Monsieur Georges calls himself, however he may be called by others,) don't put on diamond studs and embroidered waistcoats, to go to the playhouses!"

"Don't they? How should I know?" demanded Guguste, polishing the pewter spoon on his sleeve as he was accustomed to do those of his master's double-threaded silver. "What do I see of playhouses?"

"Why, you ungrateful child! didn't I give you a ticket for the pit of the Porte St. Martin, for that moving piece, 'The Spectre Abbot,' on the night of Ma'mselle Isoline's benefit, the deputy-double of the general-utility _jeune prémière_, who lodges up stairs in the back attic, next but one to your own?"

"Yes; I saw 'The Spectre Abbot,' and Ma'mselle Isoline into the bargain, with three-quarters of a yard of red calico hanging to her waist, to represent the 'Bleeding Nun;' but I didn't take any notice whether the gentleman whose elbows were jammed into my sides wore diamond studs or velvet waistcoats."

"At all events you must perceive that the highly-respectable gentleman who occupies our splendid first-floor apartment, (Monsieur Boncoeur, the deputy,) goes out every evening in his carriage in a very different costume?"

"Monsieur Boncoeur, in his carriage, need not hoist a flag of gentility. Monsieur Georges, on foot, might be hustled off the pavement but for his brilliants."

"More likely _for_ them," said the porteress.

"Besides, Monsieur Boncoeur is, as you say, such a very respectable-looking gentleman! His dark, square-cut coat, and pepper-and-salts; his broad-brimmed hat, and sad-coloured gloves; his whole outward man seems to have been taken measure of as the picture of respectability! And see what that very respectability has brought him to! Partner in one of the first houses in the Rue Bergère; deputy in the chamber; _marguillier_ of the parish; a ribbon in his button-hole; and the picture of himself and his ribbon face to face with the portrait of Louis Philippe, at the gallery of the Exposition, for all the world as if they'd a little word to say to each other in public. Lord bless you! Monsieur Boncoeur's respectable grey whiskers, respectable speckled stockings, respectable great-coat and umbrella, are worth a couple of hundred thousand francs a year to the banking-house in the Rue Bergère, as vouchers for the square-toeishness of the firm!"

"Lord love thee, child! at thy years how shouldst thou know so much of the world!" cried Madame Grégoire, removing her spectacles after this tirade, as if all further perspicacity were superfluous.

"By being thrown upon it from the moment I had years to count," cried the urchin. "A foundling hospital, Ma'me Grég. is a famous whetstone, against which no one can rub without sharpening his wits!"

"But, since thine are so sharp, boy, how comes it thou hast never discovered whither Monsieur Georges directs his steps every evening, winter and summer, at half-past seven."

"Because 'tis my business to know, and I prefer my pleasure. I've some sort of _right_, you see, to interest myself in master's proceedings; but in those of Monsieur Boncoeur of the first floor, Ma'mselle Isoline of the attic, Madame la Baronne de Gimbecque, the pretty lady with the handsome _cachemires_, _coupé_, and black eyes, who lodges in the _entrésol_, and Madame Courson, the widow lady, on the _troisième_, I've nothing but wrong; and, accordingly, not a step do they take with which I am not conversant. I could tell you, if you wanted to know, where Madame Courson's poor, little, pale, patient daughter, Demoiselle Claire----"

"Thank ye,--thank ye! I fancy I know more of my lodgers than _you_ do! All I ask you, is, concerning your master. Monsieur Georges is the only inmate of this house for whom it has ever been my fortune to pull the string without discovering, before the end of the first term, the source of his income, where he came from, whither he was going, and----"

"Good evening, grandmamma!" squeaked a voice at the moveable pane of the glass-door,--the arrow-slit, or _meurtrière_, through which every porteress is privileged to parley with visitors at meal-times or in windy weather.

"'Tis Dodo!" exclaimed Guguste, rising to open the latch for the lean and impish-looking grandson of Madame Grégoire, whose wistful glances in eyeing the empty tureen plainly indicated that his visit had been miscalculated by a quarter of an hour.

"Mother desired me to call and inquire after the rheumatic pain in your right shoulder," continued Dodo, (the short for Dodore,--which is short for Theodore, in cockney Parisian.)

"'Twas in my left, and it has left me," said the old woman peevishly; "and don't sit on that chair, child. The knitting-needles in the stocking may do you a mischief. How's your mother?"

"Mamma's got a cold, sitting out in the showers yesterday afternoon, to finish shaving a poodle which a customer was werry particular to get done in time to go out to dinner."

"Humph! I fancied, Dodo, _you_ had taken that part of the business off her hands. I thought she made over the scissors to you at Michaelmas last?"

"And so she did for anything of plain work," replied the brat; "but this was a choice customer, and a bit of fancy work; a great big grey _barbet_, which stands as high as a rocking-horse, whose master is curious in his shaving. The gentleman's a poet, what does the off-rights _romantique_ for Victor Hugo's plaything playhouse at the Porte St. Antoine; and, as the vulgars is apt to have their poodles lion-fashion, Monsieur Eugène gives hisn a mane and forelock; which, with cropped ears, looks for all the world like a unicorn!"

"What an ass!" cried Madame Grégoire contemptuously, tapping her snuff-box. "These poet and player folk makes themselves notorious, and fancies themselves famous!"

"And how goes on your own business, Dodo?" demanded Guguste, assuming in the presence of the starveling of nine years old the airs of a man of the world.

"Pretty smart, thank ye. I've just set up two new sparrow-traps in a ditch under the barrack-wall at Montrouge; and last week I sold a pair of as fine canaries as a coating of plaster of Paris and gamboge could make 'em, to a fine English lady in a carriage, as was crossing the bridge to the flower-market. Gave the brace of birds for nine francs, one of which I slipped into the hand of her _laquais de place_. But then I was out of business, you see, for three days a'twards, for fear of the police."

"Dodo, you'll be disgracing your family one of these days by being took up!" said Madame Grégoire impressively. "I remember my respectable first-floor, Monsieur Boncoeur, bringing home a piping bullfinch last year he'd bought on the Boulevards, whose red breast washed off the first showery day, all as one as Ma'mselle Isoline's rouge after a flood of tears in a melodrame! The poor dear gentleman had half a mind to have up the seller of the impositious bird before the commissary of the district; only, as he'd paid for it with an old coat unbeknownst to his valet, and an old coat not being lawful coin of the realm, there was a doubt in his mind about his power of bringing the vagabond to justice."

"Which? Himself, or the impositious bird, or the industrious fowler as was arning a living for his family?" inquired Guguste.

"Hush!" cried Madame Grégoire, laying her hand on the cord as Monsieur Georges' thin voice was heard giving utterance to his usual evening cry of "_Le cordon!_" Guguste slunk behind her high-backed chair as his tyrant passed the window,--his withered, sallow face enlivened by his gold-mounted spectacles, and his mean person coquetted into consequence, perforce of velvet and trinkets. Burnished from top to toe, he was the very moral of one of Giroux's toys, the very _im_moral of a _chevalier d'industrie_.

Certain that his master's exit would be the signal for his being fetched out of that, by the shrill summons of Ma'mselle Berthe to set the place in order, and make up the fire, (against the arrival of her cousin, Madame Dosne, an ex-box-opener of the Ambigu Comique, who occupied a chamber in the story above, and was admitted to the honour of seeing her prim relative play patience, and of sipping a glass of sugar and water with her on a long winter's evening,) Guguste flitted upward to the discharge of his duties, leaving the skinny imp of the Pont Neuf and his grandam to commune of domestic matters. While waiting the summons of Monsieur Boncoeur's demure-looking footman to open the gate for the demure-looking chariot of that highly demure and respectable individual, Madame Grégoire accordingly interrogated the boy concerning his father's absence from the sweets of his domestic hearth.

"Papa is making a tour in the south," replied the imp. "He passed the summer in the Pyrenees. The Pyrenees are quite in fashion in papa's line of business!"

"Ay, 'tis well for him that Gothon likes him to lead such a rambling life!" said Madame Grégoire in a moralizing tone. "When my poor daughter thought proper to marry a showman, I told her how it would be! To think, now, of a child of mine, a respectable _portière_ in the same house, of the same parish, for forty years' standing."

"The house?"

"The _house_, ignoramus!--The house is a century old, built by the Regent Duke of Orleans, father of his unfortunate majesty, Louis XIV, as you might read in history,--if you knew how to read.--To think of a child of mine, I say, squatting on a wooden stool, like a wild Indian, winter and summer, with nothing but a cold river under her feet, and cold oil-cloth over her head, on the look-out for a poodle in want of clipping, or some mouse-eaten-out-of-house-and-home baker in want of a tabby kitten! I protest I never think of my poor Gothon and her stock-in-trade,--her cage of cats on one side, and her string of puppies on the other,--without bitter anguish of soul. Why can't your father stay at home, Dodore, and set up in the Champs Elysées, or at the _barrières_, like other respectable men of his profession, to be nearer home?"

"Bless your heart!" remonstrated Dodo, "papa took up his station three years ago, on the way along the Allée d'Antin, to the Suspension Bridge. But it all but made a bankrupt of him! There was too much competition. Pierre the Savoyard, who had his show-box within fifty yards, has such a winning way with him that not a nurse-maid, or English lord coming out of Lepage's shooting-gallery, but used to throw silver to Pierre, where papa took only the brownest of copper. At last, a nasty, good-for-nothing, designing Jesuit of a fellow set up in opposition to both on 'em; Scripture pieces, with Jepfa's daughters, and Dalily and Goliar, a hand-organ, and Dutch pug as held an old hat, and what not. Papa bore it as long as he was able; but what was the good of opposition atween friends? He'd nothing in his box but worn-out things, as old as Methusalem or Jerusalem, or whatever it is, such as the battle of Marengo, and the Pyramids, and the landing of Xerxes in the Hellyspunt and a pack of low-lived fancies. So mamma persuaded him to try the provinces (where, as all the world knows, the stalest bread goes down); and so, from fair to fair, he's been touring it this twelvemonth."

"Poor Gothon!"

"Mamma doesn't fret. She says I shall soon be old enough to take papa's business off his shoulders, and then he'll be able to retire comfortable; and she'll give up her stall on the Pont Neuf, and the kitten and canary line, to sister Mary."

Madame Grégoire was about to remonstrate against this perpetuation of open-air commerce in her posterity, when Monsieur Boncoeur's signal was given; and, lo, the well-varnished, well-stuffed, but plain chariot of the thriving banker, rolled after his fat and bean-fed horses out of the court-yard.

Some minutes afterwards, his portly _femme de ménage_, Madame Alexandre, stepped into the lodge for a few minutes' gossip with the porteress previous to proceeding to her evening's _Boston_ with the grocer's lady at the opposite corner. The comely housekeeper, in her silk-cloak and bonnet, was naturally an object of dislike and envy to the withered _portière_, in her ragged merino gown and dingy calico cap. But Christmas was approaching. Her _étrennes_ for New Year's Day (to the sum total of which, the first-floor contributed three-fourths) were seldom absent from Madame Grégoire's calculations. Besides, Monsieur Boncoeur's housekeeper was to be conciliated as a connecting link in her chain of domestic investigation; for Madame Alexandre not only afforded her quota of information concerning her own and her master's affairs, but, in pure pryingness of spirit, contrived to see through stone-walls, and hear down chimneys, while striving to put this and that together concerning those of her fellow-lodgers.

"Well, Madame Grégoire, what is the best news with us this evening?" demanded the jolly dame, as soon as the porteress had despatched her hungry grandson home to his mamma, the kittens and canaries. "I'm just stepping out, you see, for my little game with the Pruins. Poor people, they can't do without me! If I warn't with them before the clock struck eight, I should be having them here after me; and, to be filling the house with visitors during master's absence, is a thing I'm not in the habit of doing, as nobody knows, better than yourself. Indeed, it's a matter of conscience that takes me out the moment his back is turned. As a _femme de confiance_, I'm bound to see there's no waste; and where there's visitors there _must_ be tippling and stuffing; so, out of regard to Monsieur Boncoeur's property, I'm seldom in the house ten minutes after him. I hope I know my duty by so respectable a master better than to make away with his goods like Ma'mselle Berthe up yonder, who keeps open house like a lady, with as many rings at her bells of an evening as e'er a duchess in the land! But, as I was saying, Madame Grégoire,--(Dearie me, I thought I wasn't by no means comfortable! I've been sitting on the knitting-needles! lucky my cloak was wadded!)--as I was saying, have you made out anything further about them Coursons?"

"Scarce a syllable more than the first day they took possession! One knowed they was respectable, 'cause our proprietor is exceeding particular about references,--(there isn't a partic'larer landlord from one end of the Boulevards to t'other!)--and one knowed they was _poor_, 'cause their moveables came on a porter's truck, instead of occupying a cart and horse, as becomes a creditable lodger, or instead of occupying three vans of the _administration des déménagemens_, as was the case, I remember, when our respectable first-floor moved in."

Madame Alexandre smiled a neat and appropriate smile of acknowledgment for her master; while the porteress took breath, a pinch of snuff, and proceeded.

"But as to their origin, and sitch, I know no more than Adam! Not an acquaintance in the parish! I even put the water-carrier upon asking about the neighbourhood; but no such name as Courson was ever heard of! How do we know, pray, who we've got among us? Courson may be a sham name, such as we reads of in Monsieur Jules Janin's novels!"

"Such rubbish, indeed!" said Madame Alexandre, with a sneer, intended, like the epithet, to apply to the lodgers on the third-floor, ignored by the water-carrier and public-houses in the neighbourhood, _not_ to Monsieur Janin's novels, which were probably familiar to them all.

"Would you believe it, ma'am? there's the saucy minx of a daughter (Ma'mselle Claire, I think, you told me was her name,) has the owdacity to bid me good morning or good evening if I haps to meet her on the stairs, affable-like, as if she felt me her inferiorer! Me! Now I don't know, Ma'me Grégoire, what your opinion may be, but _I_ holds (and so does my friends, the Pruins,) that the upper domestics of the first-floor is on a 'quality with the lodgers of the third, that keeps no domestics at all."

"Certainly, ma'am, certainly," replied the porteress, still harping on the amount of her New Year's gift. "But have you made out nothing of these people's occupations? You're two floors nigher to 'em than me. If I was in _your_ place----"

"If you was in that of the housekeeper of Monsieur Georges, you mean! Ma'mselle Berthe's store-closet looks clean into Ma'mselle Claire's room."

"Looks dirty in," emended the prying porteress.

"And, if Ma'mselle Berthe wasn't as dry as a handful of deal shavings, maybe I might have demeaned myself to ask her in a friendly way how the young lady passed her mornings. But Ma'mselle Berthe (the _chissie_!) condescends to hold just about as much communication with me as one of the chayney mandarins on the top of master's cabinet,--shakes her head by way of salutation, and not a word!"

"But, Guguste (Monsieur Georges's little lad of all work and no play) assured me he saw Ma'mselle Courson ring at Monsieur Boncoeur's bell the other day, and deliver a letter to the footman."

"Oho! that dirty little _gamin_ plays the spy upon those who rings at Monsieur Boncoeur's bell, do he?" cried the housekeeper, reddening. "Very dirty behaviour, I must confess!"

"But, my dear madam, my dear friend," whined the porteress in a tone of deprecation, "did not you yourself inform me that Monsieur Boncoeur's footman carried up on Sunday se'nnight, by Monsieur Boncoeur's desire, to Ma'mselle Claire, a box of apricot marmalade, and the last number of the '_Follet_'?"

"I said no such thing, ma'am, as I remember. The marmalade and the journal was both lawfully directed to Madame Courson. I never so much as insinnivated a word of an intention of attention to Mademoiselle!"

"Then I miscomprehended, ma'am; in which I'm the more to blame, because, from the highly-respectable character of the mansion for which I have the honour to pull the string, (there isn't, as I said before, a more partic'larer landlord than the proprietor from one end of the Boulevarts to t'other,) I might have known that even the letters of a gentleman so distinguished as my first-floor would never have been received by Ma'mselle, the daughter of Madame Courson."

"_That_'s all you know about it,--is it?" cried the lusty housekeeper, crimsoning with pique. "Then be so good as to tell me what makes such a young lady as Ma'mselle, Madame Courson's daughter, write written letters to so distinguished a gentleman as your first-floor? Answer me that!"

"She couldn't be guilty of anything so heinous!" cried the porteress, aghast.

"I tell you she _was_!"

"You _must_ be mistaken!"

"Seeing is believing, Madame Grégoire!"

"Ay! you may have seen her _deliver_ a written letter, poor dear, from her mamma, in all probability?"

"No such thing!--from herself."

"Now, how can you possibly know! Did you see her write it? Do you even know her handwriting?"

"I know her signature,--'Claire de Courson;' and you told me your werry self, that the agreement for the lodgings was signed by her mother as 'Emilie de Courson.'"

"But the signature was inside the written letter. How could you see _that_?"

"No matter; I did see it with my two eyes as plain as I see you."

"And that's plain enough," muttered Guguste, who, having crept back unobserved into the room, was skulking in a corner.

"Why, sure you didn't go to peep?" said the porteress, with a knowing look of inquiry and accusation.

"What a one you are!" cried Madame Alexandre, trying to turn off jocularly her self-betrayal. "But, not to haggle with partic'lars of how the letter came into my hands, into my hands it came; and what should it be, but a private confidential _tête-à-tête_ epistle from the young lady, saying how Monsieur Boncoeur's reputation for benevolence was up in the neighbourhood, and how he seemed inclined to befriend her poor mother, (the apricot marmalade, you know!) and how it would be a great charity (no, not charity,--act of humanity the shabby-genteels calls it,) if he would exert his interest to procure for her mamma a privilege to sell stamps, a _bureau de papier timbré_; for which, of course, his petitioner was ever bound to pray, and so forth."

"I hope they don't think of setting up anything in the shop or office line in a house like ourn?" cried Madame Grégoire, with dignity. "They'll find theirself plaguily out of their reckoning!--for I must say it, who shouldn't say it, that there isn't a more partic'larer landlord."

"I'll just tell you what," ruthlessly interrupted Madame Alexandre, twitching her silk cloak, as if meditating departure. "Tonight's Monday, you know."

"Yes, I _do_ know."

"And that's the reception-night, you know, of the Minister of the Home Department."

"No, I didn't know."

"And, as sure as life,----"

"Lord lovee, Ma'me Alexandre, don't use that profane expression! There's nothing less sure than life!" cried Madame G. while Auguste groaned in the background.

"As sure as a gun, then----"

Again Auguste groaned.

"--Master's gone this evening to the hotel of the _Ministre de l'Interieur_, to present Ma'mselle Claire's petition for a stamp-office."

"Do you really think things of that sort are done in that sort of straight-for'ard way?" demanded the porteress. "_I_ fancied that, when you wanted anything of government, you got a word said for you to the cousin of some clerk-of-a-deputy-to-an-under-commissioner, with, maybe, a genteel little offering, to make it go down,--such as a Savoy cake, or a China rose-tree in a flower-pot."

"Nonsense! You're thinking of folks of your own species," said the housekeeper disdainfully.

"You forget that my master, Monsieur Boncoeur,'s a representative of the nation, a governor of the Bank of France, and a _marguillier_ of the parish. Master's a right to go straight an end to the king, and tell his majesty any little wish he may have ungratified. And, if he _should_ think proper to mention to Louis Philippe Ma'mselle Claire's desire that her mamma should set up a bureau for stamps, her business is done!"

They were interrupted by the starting up of Guguste, who was crouching behind them, and placed an admonitory finger on his lip to impose silence upon Madame Grégoire's meditated rejoinder, just as a very white hand, holding a very black key, was intruded into the room through the porter's window; and the silvery accents of Mademoiselle Courson were heard, announcing to the porteress that she was going out for half an hour; and that, though her mother remained at home, she was indisposed, and could receive no visitors."

"_Visitors_, indeed! Who ever comes to visit _them_, I should like to know!" muttered Madame Grégoire, after pulling the _cordon_ to admit of the young lady's egress.

"She certainly _had_ a bundle under her arm!" cried Madame Alexandre, who had been watching the young lady through the window. "Now, how I _should_ like to know where she's going."

"To the pharmacy, for medicine for her mother, or to the herborist for lime-blossoms, to make _tisanne_," said Guguste, who shrewdly anticipated a request on the part of the elderly ladies that he would arise and play the spy upon the movements of Mademoiselle Claire.

"Pho! pho! The old lady's only trouble-sick, which would be a deal worse than body-sick, only that it don't require no physic," observed the porteress.

"Then she's gone to the laundress."

"Laundress, indeed!" cried the fat housekeeper; "as if low-lived people like the third-floor wasn't their own laundress!"

"Pardon me, my dear Ma'me Alexandre," cried the porteress. "You know we don't allow no hanging out in _this_ house. There's not a more partic'larer landlord in----"

"'Tis my true and honest belief," interrupted the lady in the silk-cloak, "that the girl is gone to the Mont de Piété! I said to Robert, our footman, when he was taking up master's apricot marmalade, that 'twould be a deal more to the purpose if he took up a good dish of cutlets, or a _fricandeau_; for, as you and I was agreeing t'other day, my dear Ma'me Grégoire, not an ounce of anything eatable beyond daily bread ever goes up these blessed stairs to the third-floor. And, what's more, I've noticed strange changes in Miss and Madam since they took up in the house; I don't mean in point of growing thin and meagre, 'cause care alone, without starving, will bring the poor body of a poor soul down to nothing. But, the day as their goods came in, Ma'mselle Courson had as good a cloak over her shoulders as the one on mine (which cost me a good hundred and thirty livres in the Passage de l'Orme,) and Ma'mselle Claire's having a velvet collar doubtless might be counted at twenty more. What's become of it, I should like to know?"

"Ay, what's become of it, eh?" added the porteress, tapping her box.

"_Certes!_ people that _has_ a comfortable cloak is apt to put it on such nights as this!" rejoined the housekeeper; "but I say nothing."

"The young lady may have lent it to her mamma, who is indisposed," pleaded Guguste. "Fuel is ris' within the week. I don't suppose they've too much fire."

"Lent it to her mamma, indeed!" cried Madame Alexandre. "Why, Madame Courson has as handsome a Thibet shawl as ever came out of Ternaux's factory."

"_Had_," emended the porteress. "I haven't seen the red shawl on her shoulders these three weeks. On that point I has my suspicions."

A single rap, Parisian-wise, at the _porte cochère_, produced the usual professional tug at the _cordon_. The gate flew open; and, peeping in at the window-pane, was seen the rubicund face of Monsieur Paul Emile Pruin, the grocer, come in search of his loitering guest.

"So, so, so!" cried he, on detecting her in the thick of gossip with the grandmamma of Dodore. "_This_ is the way you keep your appointments, _ma belle voisine_? Haven't we had the hearth made up these three quarters of an hour, candles snuffed, (_bougies de l'étoile_, always a-snuffing!) a fresh bottle of _groseille frambroisée_ ready to be uncorked, and a batch of _biscuits de Rheims_ ready to be opened?--Saw _Monsieur le Député's_ carriage bowl out, and been hoping ever since to see you bowl in. Poor Madame Paul in the fidgets, as if she'd swallowed a flight of swallows,--up and down,--in and out. Sent me over with the umbrella to look after you."

"Thank you,--thank you!" cried Madame Alexandre. "'Tis the first of the month, you see," she continued, winking at the blind old porteress (to whom a nod and wink were much alike) to back her apologies. "I'd my little postage account to settle with my good friend here. But now I'm at your service. _Allons!_"

"Guguste, my dear, show the lantern to Madame Alexandre over the _ruisseau_," said the porteress, turning round to look for her boarder. But Guguste had disappeared. He had perhaps sneaked away to track the mysterious footsteps of Mademoiselle de Courson.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 29: The business of a porter in Paris is to open the gates of the house to comers and goers after dusk, by means of a cord, which is fixed in the lodge.]

MARTIAL IN TOWN.

THE SERVANT OUT OF LIVERY.

Dandle! when thou art asked abroad,
It is not for thy wit reward:
We know that thou canst draw a cork;
In carving, use thy knife and fork;
Canst hand the tea-cups round at tea,
And hold an urchin on each knee;
Canst sort the cards, set tables right,
And see old ladies home at night:
With talents of such vast display,
Thou'rt but a servant for the day!

ASTRONOMICAL AGITATION.

REFORM OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM.

FROM OUR OWN REPORTER.

Yesterday, a numerous and highly respectable meeting of gentlemen and ladies interested in the stability of the solar system was held, pursuant to advertisement in the Vox Stellarum, True Sun, &c. at the sign of the Great Bear in the North Hemisphere, at One P.M. (sidereal time).

Long before the hour named, the neighbouring constellations were crowded with a brilliant assemblage of all the beauty and fashion of the upper regions. Amongst the glittering throng we noticed nearly all the stars of any magnitude occupying their accustomed places, together with deputations from various influential bodies interested in the support of the system; the principal Nebulæ, several Signs of the Zodiac, a deputation from the Electro-magnetic Grand Junction Company, and from the Galvanic Branch Association, his Highness the Meridian with several degrees of Longitude, the Equator with the Latitudinarian party, the Torrid Zone and his Tropics, their High Mightinesses the Hurricanes, Mr. Monsoon and the Trades' Union of the South Hemisphere, the Æthereal and Atmospheric Alliance Company, and, though last not least, their Royal Highnesses the Planets, who came in state, attended by a guard of honour of their Satellites in rings and belts, under a royal salute of Thunder and Lightning.

The great Area of the Constellation was brilliantly lit with Zodiacal light. Notwithstanding the exertions of a strong party of the Centrifugal Police Force, assisted by the Comets from the out-stations under Inspector Halley, and a detachment of the South African Asteroids, (sent by Sir W. Herschel from head-quarters at the Cape,) the atmospheric pressure was nearly insupportable, and several of the ladies were nearly absorbed by the crowd. Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta appeared to suffer intensely; and we deeply regret to state that one of the Pleiads is still missing, to the great regret of her lovely sisters and their brilliant circle. The disorderly conduct of a White Squall (introduced by Mr. Monsoon) was as conspicuous as the undeviating and steady regularity of the members of the Trades' Union. Discordant cries of "Adjourn!" "Adjourn to the Milky Way!" quite drowned the music of the Spheres.

On the arrival of the Planets, the meeting accordingly adjourned to the Via Lactea. Cassiopea's Chair (kindly lent for the occasion) was impartially, if not brilliantly, filled by our old and steady friend the Pole Star; his fair neighbour and _protegée_, Aurora Borealis, acted as secretary, and excited universal admiration by her brilliant rapidity.

The Man in the Moon then rose, and said he had been deputed by the Sidereal and Solar System Self-supporting Societies, to lay before the meeting a statement of their reasons for assembling. His indifference to all sublunary considerations was well known, and he was utterly incapable of casting reflections upon any body; but he must solemnly declare that the constant annoyances and insults which he received from his neighbours the Terrestrials were enough to inflame the temper of a Fixed Star. (Cheers from the Sidereal benches.) He had heard much of Tellurian attractions; but he was fortunately not of a warm temperament, and he would never so far deviate from the orbit of moral rectitude as to yield to them. The very idea of forming a Tellurian connexion was repulsive to him: and with his Eccentric tendency, unless he were warmly supported by the Influential Members of the System, and by that admirable institution the Centrifugal Force, he trembled for the consequences of the continuance of such conduct on the part of the Earth; he should hazard his very Equilibrium, and expose himself to an attack of Parabola. ("Shame!" and groans.) Ever since that scoundrel Daniel O'Rourke had obtruded himself upon him, he had had no peace: the sanctity of Sidereal society had been invaded, and the mysteries of the Lunarian Œconomy unveiled. (Loud cries of "Shame!" from Mars and Venus.) He had been, in common with many of those whom he was addressing, travestied at the Terrestrial theatres. (A voice, "The Olympic!") He had been exposed to the naked eye by astronomical lecturers, without even the decent intervention of a spy-glass. Whichever way he turned his phase, they followed him. But he would proceed at once to that which had principally induced him to address them; he meant the Monster Balloon (Confusion) and its crew. (Cries of "Down with 'em!" "Nebulize 'em!" "Tip 'em the Meteorics!" &c.) Yes, they had defied the elements, violated the whole of the Gravitation laws, and endangered the stability of the system itself. (Cheers.) He (the Honourable Lunarian) did not know where they would stop. Other aeronauts had respected Lunatic and Sidereal dignity, and had had the decency to perform their antics by daylight; but these Balloon Monsters, these vile Misouranists had done it burglariously, and by starlight. He had indeed been spared the indignity of beholding them; but all celestial security was at an end, and he did not know when he rose any evening, whether he should be allowed to set again in peace."

(The worthy Luminary, overpowered by his feelings, sank beneath the Horizon in a Halo of tears, amidst thunders of applause.)

The Winds rose all at once, and attempted to make themselves heard; and many of the Siderealists being anxious to neutralize all opposition, much irregularity and many disturbances ensued, but, the Fixed Stars surrounding the Chair, and the Centrifugal Force interfering, order was restored, and

_Mr. Zephyr_, of the Trades' Union, in a scarcely audible whisper, commenced by expressing his regret at the surface of the meeting having been ruffled by anything which had _fallen from the Moon_. (Coruscations of laughter.) The Moon rose to order. "It was a vile slander of the grovelling Terrestrials,--he never let anything fall: the meteoric stones--" ("Order, order!") "Mr. Zephyr proceeded. He had expected a breeze, but was quite unprepared for such a blowing up. (Cheers.) His own course had been uniformly steady, and the principles by which he was actuated were now ascertained and appreciated by high and low. He was neither a Lunatic nor a Terrestrial, but of the Atmospheric Juste Milieu,--in short, an Aerialist. Whilst he opposed all undue Planetary influence, and disliked a Sidereal ascendency, he abhorred a Vacuum, and was deeply interested in the stability of the Solar System. He could with confidence appeal to his worthy neighbours the Tropics, and to the whole constituency of the Torrid Zone for the confirmation of his assertions. ("Hear, hear!" from Cancer and Capricorn.) He had been accused of blowing hot and cold, (Ironical cheers from Messrs. Boreas and Auster,) but that was merely because he was not violent,--not a regular Destructive, like some of his neighbours, who were always kicking up a dust, and never knew when to stop. (Cheers from the Trades.) But he would no longer deviate from his course. It must, he thought, be clear to the least reflecting surfaces, that these large meetings had a tendency to cause disturbances, and to lead to serious irregularities. Many of the Stars would be out all night, and he feared that some of their Royal Highnesses the Planets would find it impossible to perform their necessary revolutions in proper time. How could they expect to find Honourable Luminaries ready to undertake the onerous duties of acting as Morning Stars if all this night-work were to be allowed? How was it possible, for instance, for Jupiter to go his circuit, or for Georgium Sidus to keep his distance? ("Order!") He looked upon the Balloon and its crew as mere trifles, light as air. There was no danger of their rising above their own petty sphere. It was quite clear that they were within the Gravitation laws: if they transgressed them, they would be very soon placed _in vacuo_, and the full penalty levied under the Newton act. That penalty amounted to a prohibition, for it not only inflicted sixteen feet perpendicular for the first second, but went on in a rapidly-increasing proportion. He must be excused for disbelieving the alleged Eccentricity of the worthy Luminary who rose last. He thought his anticipations of premature Parabola mere moonshine; he appeared to him to have viewed the light in which he was regarded by the Terrestrials through a most distorted medium. He could assure him that he had lately become the observed of all observers. The Fixed Stars were much better appreciated, and were considered as peculiarly well calculated for their places: even the Nebulæ were beginning to be properly estimated; and a very graphic account of the Double Stars had made them better known, and had displayed their peculiar sympathies, and numerous and unprecedented attractions. Even the necessity of Periodical Revolutions was now admitted below as well as above, and there appeared a strong tendency to a system of Universal Centralization. His worthy friends the Atmospherics would bear him out in saying that the doctrine of 'Pressure from without' was understood and acted on to its fullest extent, and that an important Displacement was generally anticipated. He begged to be allowed to subside by moving an adjournment _sine die_." (At this period our reporter was obliged to leave; but we are happy to say there was every prospect of Mr. Zephyr's motion being carried.)

THE ADVENTURES OF A TALE.

BY THE HON. MRS. ERSKINE NORTON.

"I could [and will] a tale unfold!"--_Hamlet._

It is with indignation such only as a literary composition, conscious of its own high value, and smarting under injustice and neglect, can be supposed to feel, that I lift up my voice from behind the serried ranks of my companions, long tales and short, the light effusion of three pages, or the decided weight of three volumes; serious tales or gay; moral or profane; fine French or low Irish; tales without an end, and tales that ought never to have had a beginning; tales in ponderous verse or in gossamer prose; the delicate and brittle ware called travellers' tales; or those more substantial and important-looking matters, political economy tales. I say, that from behind this prodigious phalanx I rise up like Erskine from behind the big-wigs of the first law-court he addressed, elevating myself as the young counsellor on his bench, and making myself heard,--not, it is true, in the general cause of justice, liberty, humanity, and so forth, but in that cause in which all, if not eloquent, are at least earnest and sincere,--in the cause of self.

It is said that Minerva (a goddess) sprang from the brain of Jupiter without a mamma; I, Seraphina (a tale), issued forth from the lovely head (I am not quite so sure of the brain) of a fair romantic young lady, without a papa;--at least so I presume, for my composition is purely feminine; my slight and delicate texture could only have been woven by an unassisted female imagination.

While yet in embryo, I was christened Seraphina, and was to be composed in three or four reasonably long letters (ladies' letters, crossed and re-crossed with different coloured inks,) to Clementina. My respected parent decided that there was nothing equal to the epistolary form for describing the sentiments and adventures of a heroine; for who like herself _can_ lay open all those finer and minuter feelings of the inmost heart, pouring into the ear of sympathising friendship every wish, every hope, every thought? Soul meets soul, even through the vulgar medium of pens, ink, and paper; "thoughts that glow and words that burn," are traced by the delicate fingers that "resume the pen," with a celerity altogether surprising; no agitation can delay, no fatigue can excuse; the half-dozen sheets of foolscap that are to be run over before she can lay her throbbing temples on her pillow, her white drapery (i. e. her night-gown) floating round her, her long hair unbound (very much out of curl), her snowy feet on the cold marble (she has lost her slippers), her door carefully locked, but her trellised casement left open, that the pale moonbeams may peep through it; her lamp is decaying, her hands are trembling, her eyes swimming in tears;--_n'importe_, the six sheets of foolscap are finished! O, there is nothing like the epistolary form! Seraphina shall be in letters to Clementina;

"Sure, letters were invented for some wretch's aid,
Some absent lover, or some captive maid."--POPE.

I can just recollect, as I began to assume form and consistency, how much and how dearly I was fondled by my young and doting mother; indeed, at times, I ran some danger of being killed by kindness. While transcribing some of the deeply affecting scenes and sentiments with which I abound, I was nearly obliterated by her tears, my material parts being composed with a very fine pen and very pale ink; at other times, when the stronger passions took possession of the scene, and revenge, hatred, and fury predominated, she would crush me in her hand, "her eyes in a fine frenzy rolling," and throw me to the other end of the room. Of course she had some difficulty in smoothing me out again. Nevertheless I grew in stature, and in favour with mamma, myself, and four young ladies, her neighbours, (all under fifteen,) who were at home for the holidays. On the assembling of this little coterie, I was mysteriously brought forth from my perfumed drawer, where I lay covered with dried rose-leaves, and read by the author of my being, in a way in which an author only can read. My young auditory listened in profound attention and admiration, secretly resolving that they too would try their unfledged wings in authorship, when they had left off school and finished their education. Except to these four interesting girls, my existence was a profound secret.

My composition is certainly enough to excite emulation, however hopeless. I am (though I say it myself) an exquisite tale. My heroine is a model of beauty, virtue, tenderness, and thrilling sensibility; "a perfect wonder that the world ne'er saw;" therefore the world ought the more to appreciate so rare a conception. Her mother was a suffering angel on earth; but, happily for herself, she removed to a more congenial abode, while her cherub child was yet in infancy. The surviving parent is, of course, a horrid tyrant, who cannot comprehend the highly-wrought sensibilities of his daughter, and therefore will not give way to them. There is the suitor favoured by the father, and the lover favoured by the daughter. There are a locking up, an elopement, delicate and dubious situations full of excitement, misapprehensions of all kinds, a false female friend, libertine lords, fine unfeeling ladies, dark stormy nights, and a catastrophe of the most extraordinary, pathetic, and soul-subduing interest. And then my descriptions of nature! my silver moon and diamond stars! my rustling trees! my woodbine, jessamine, and violets!

A little conceit I acknowledge to, when copied on pale pink, gilt-edged paper, curiously ornamented with embossed loves and doves, written in a neat small running-hand, the tails of my letters prettily curled, plenty of dashes, and very few stops, I was thus headed:

SERAPHINA; OR, SUFFERING SENSIBILITY.
A TALE.
BY A FAIR UNKNOWN.

"Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,
And man below, and saints above,
For love is heaven, and heaven is love."
_Lay of the Last Minstrel._

I was highly scented, and sealed in green wax, with a device of Cupid tormenting a heart.

The dignified Half-yearly was selected for my debut. It rarely admitted literature of my class, and such only of acknowledged merit; consequently it was considered my proper and natural medium. From it, I was to be commented on and extracted in the monthlies, as well in Edinburgh and Dublin as in London; I was to be pirated by the Americans and translated by the French; and at the end of the year I was, by express permission, to appear in one of the most fashionable annuals, my tenderest scene forming the subject of a gorgeous frontispiece, on which the most celebrated artists were to lavish their talents. The identification of the "Fair Unknown" was to become the puzzle of the season; and already many scenes of admiring wonder on the part of others, and of dignified modesty on her own, had been played off in the active imagination of my dear parent; the acknowledgement of Evelina by its young authoress to her father, and the final recognition of the _Great_ Unknown, were her models.

At length, with this dazzling perspective before me, I was dismissed from the maternal embrace. Betty the housemaid slipped with me out of the street-door, holding me with a piece of white paper between her finger and thumb, to prevent her soiling my envelope; while my mother watched us from the window with tears in her eyes. On reaching the twopenny post-office, Betty without any ceremony pushed me through a slit beneath a window, and, to my great discomposure, I fell head over heels into a dirty box full of all sorts of queer-looking epistles. As might be expected, I painfully felt this my first tumble (for I cannot call it _step_) into real from imaginary life. I had scarcely time to recover from the shock before the box was withdrawn, and we were all turned out by a fat woman on a horrid thing called a counter, where we were _sorted_, as she termed it, and distributed, with a rapidity that was quite confounding, to three or four shabby-looking men having bags under their arms. I, being the first turned out, was the last the post-mistress clawed up. She retained me a full minute, twirled me round, examined my seal, thrust her great finger between my delicate side folds, and brought me up to her eye to peer if possible into my inside, when the monster who held his bag open to receive me, called out,

"Come, mistress,--can't wait no longer!"

"Well," she replied, "bless me, if this don't look for all the world like a walentine!" and into the bag she reluctantly dropped me, writhing as I was with pain and indignation.