everything, with an interest whose amount is in ratio with the square
of his distance from his master), to give a few features of the scene,
which he spread in detail before the attentive Josephine during many
an evening after.

[Illustration: COALS vs. COATS]

The principal fair-ground--though the occasion crammed the whole city
with revelers--was just outside the gate. It was a veritable town in
miniature, with a pattern of checker-board streets--Columbine street,
Polichinelle street, Avenue des Parades, Place des Parades, Street of
the Chanson, and the like. There were more than five hundred booths,
all numbered--shops and restaurants. There were the Salon Curtius,
the Ménagerie Bidel, the Bal Mabille, the Café Bataclan, the American
Tavern. From one of the little costumers' shops, Charles--with
a higher evincement of antiquarian taste than I should have
expected--managed to bear away a pattern of wall-paper, which I
afterward conferred on Mary Ashburleigh with great applause: it was
Parisian of 1824, the epoch of Charles Dix, and was entirely covered
with giraffes in honor of that puissant and elegant monarch. The above
establishments were near the entrance, to the right.

At the left were more attractions: another menagerie, a heap of
ostensible gold representing the five milliards paid by France, a
gallery of astonished wax soldiers representing the Franco-Prussian
war, a cook-shop with "mythologic" confectionery. Farther on, in the
Théâtre Casti, was exposed the "renowned buffoon Peppino," breveted by
His Majesty the "king of Egypt;" then came the Chiarini Theatre; then
the Théâtre Adrien Delille, an enchantingly pretty structure, where
receptions were given by a little creature who should have sat under