But it doesn’t want the presence of a Dodor to make the blue-bloused sons of the Gallic people (and its neatly shod, white-capped daughters) delightful to watch as they take their pleasure. And the Laird (thinking perhaps of Hampstead Heath on an Easter Monday) must not be blamed for once more quoting his favorite phrase—the pretty little phrase with which the most humorous and least exemplary of British parsons began his famous journey to France.
When they came back to the hotel to dress and dine, the Laird found he wanted a pair of white gloves for the concert—“Oon pair de gong blong,” as he called it—and they walked along the boulevards till they came to a haberdasher’s shop of very good and prosperous appearance, and, going in, were received graciously by the “patron,” a portly little bourgeois, who waved them to a tall and aristocratic and very well dressed young commis behind the counter, saying, “Une paire de gants blancs pour monsieur.”
And what was the surprise of our three friends in recognizing Dodor!
The gay Dodor, Dodor l’irrésistible, quite unembarrassed by his position, was exuberant in his delight at seeing them again, and introduced them to the patron and his wife and daughter, Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle Passefil. And it soon became pretty evident that, in spite of his humble employment in that house, he was a great favorite in that family, and especially with mademoiselle.
Indeed, Monsieur Passefil invited our three heroes to stay and dine then and there; but they compromised matters by asking Dodor to come and dine with them at the hotel, and he accepted with alacrity.
Thanks to Dodor, the dinner was a very lively one, and they soon forgot the regretful impressions of the day.
They learned that he hadn’t got a penny in the world, and had left the army, and had for two years kept the books at le père Passefil’s and served his customers, and won his good opinion and his wife’s, and especially his daughter’s; and that soon he was to be not only his employer’s partner, but his son-in-law; and that, in spite of his impecuniosity, he had managed to impress them with the fact that in marrying a Rigolot de Lafarce she was making a very splendid match indeed!
His brother-in-law, the Honorable Jack Reeve, had long cut him for a bad lot. But his sister, after a while, had made up her mind that to marry Mlle. Passefil wasn’t the worst he could do; at all events, it would keep him out of England, and that was a comfort! And passing through Paris, she had actually called on the Passefil family, and they had fallen prostrate before such splendor; and no wonder, for Mrs. Jack Reeve was one of the most beautiful, elegant, and fashionable women in London, the smartest of the smart.
“And how about l’Zouzou?” asked Little Billee.
“Ah, old Gontran! I don’t see much of him. We no longer quite move in the same circles, you know; not that he’s proud, or me either! but he’s a sublieutenant in the Guides—an officer! Besides, his brother’s dead, and he’s the Duc de la Rochemartel, and a special pet of the Empress; he makes her laugh more than anybody! He’s looking out for the biggest heiress he can find, and he’s pretty safe to catch her, with such a name as that! In fact, they say he’s caught her already—Miss Lavinia Hunks, of Chicago. Twenty million dollars!—at least, so the Figaro says!”
Then he gave them news of other old friends; and they did not part till it was time for them to go to the Cirque des Bashibazoucks, and after they had arranged to dine with his future family on the following day.
In the Rue St. Honoré was a long double file of cabs and carriages slowly moving along to the portals of that huge hall, Le Cirque des Bashibazoucks. Is it there still, I wonder? I don’t mind betting not! Just at this period of the Second Empire there was a mania for demolition and remolition (if there is such a word), and I have no doubt my Parisian readers would search the Rue St. Honoré for the Salle des Bashibazoucks in vain!
Our friends were shown to their stalls, and looked round in surprise. This was before the days of the Albert Hall, and they had never been in such a big place of the kind before, or one so regal in aspect, so gorgeously imperial with white and gold and crimson velvet, so dazzling with light, so crammed with people from floor to roof, and cramming itself still.
A platform carpeted with crimson cloth had been erected in front of the gates where the horses had once used to come in, and their fair riders, and the two jolly English clowns; and the beautiful nobleman with the long frock-coat and brass buttons, and soft high boots, and four-in-hand whip—la chambrière.
In front of this was a lower stand for the orchestra. The circus itself was filled with stalls—stalles d’orchestre. A pair of crimson curtains hid the entrance to the platform at the back, and by each of these stood a small page, ready to draw it aside and admit the diva.
The entrance to the orchestra was by a small door under the platform, and some thirty or forty chairs and music-stands, grouped around the conductor’s estrade, were waiting for the band.
Little Billee looked round, and recognized many countrymen and countrywomen of his own—many great musical celebrities especially, whom he had often met in London. Tiers upon tiers of people rose up all round in a widening circle, and lost themselves in a dazy
