franc-fifty. The cheapest dinner in the fair!"

"The cheapest dinner in the fair is at the Belle Gabrielle!" cried
another. "We'll give you for the same money soup, fish, two dishes, a
dessert, a half-bottle, and take your photograph into the bargain!"

"Bravo! _mon vieux_--you first poison them with your dinner, and then
provide photographs for the widows and children," retorts touter number
one. "That's justice, anyhow."

Whereupon touter number two shrieks out a torrent of abuse, and we push
on, leaving them to settle their differences after their own fashion.

At the next booth we are accosted by a burly fellow daubed to the eyes
with red and blue paint, and dressed as an Indian chief.

"_Entrez, entrez, Messieurs et Mesdames_" he cries, flourishing a
war-spear some nine feet in length. "Come and see the wonderful Peruvian
maiden of Tanjore, with webbed fingers and toes, her mouth in the back
of her head, and her eyes in the soles of her feet! Only four sous each,
and an opportunity that will never occur again!"

"Only fifty centimes!" shouts another public orator; "the most ingenious
little machine ever invented! Goes into the waistcoat pocket--is wound
up every twenty-four hours--tells the day of the month, the day of the
year, the age of the moon, the state of the Bourse, the bank rate of
discount, the quarter from which the wind is blowing, the price of
new-laid eggs in Paris and the provinces, the rate of mortality in the
Fee-jee islands, and the state of your sweetheart's affections!"