immense profits. Along the crazy walls extended a few rough shelves
covered with bottles and decanters. Three planks placed on boards formed
the counter, with Père la Chaise always behind it. There were two or three
small tables, as many chairs, and one big wooden bench. Here gathered the
city's working-class, and often among them one might find a goodly number
of the city's élite; for the wine and the beer of the old _cabaretier_
were famous, and one could be sure in entering there to hear all the news
told and discussed.

By day the place was quiet, but with evening it became tumultuous. Père la
Chaise, happily, did not lose his head; he found means to satisfy all, to
smooth down quarrels without calling in the police, to get rid of
drunkards, and to make delinquents pay up.

My father knew the place, and never failed to pay it a visit when he went
to New Orleans. Poor, dear father! he loved to talk as much as to travel.
Père la Chaise was acquainted with him. One evening papa entered, sat down
at one of the little tables, and bade Père la Chaise bring a bottle of his
best wine. The place was already full of people, drinking, talking, and
singing. A young man of twenty-six or twenty-seven entered almost timidly
and sat down at the table where my father was--for he saw that all the
other places were occupied--and ordered a half-bottle of cider. He was a
Norman gardener. My father knew him by sight; he had met him here several
times without speaking to him. You recognized the peasant at once; and yet
his exquisite neatness, the gentleness of his face, distinguished him from
his kind. Joseph Carpentier was dressed[8] in a very ordinary gray woolen
coat; but his coarse shirt was very white, and his hair, when he took off
his broad-brimmed hat, was well combed and glossy.

As Carpentier was opening his bottle a second frequenter entered the