He was an influential member of the Cercle des Patineurs in Paris.

Steinmetz arrived soon after, to look on, as he told his many friends.

He was, he averred, too stout to skate and too heavy for the little iron sleds on the ice-hills.
"No, no!" he said, "there is nothing left for me but to watch.

I shall watch De Chauxville," he added, turning to that graceful skater with a grim smile.

De Chauxville nodded and laughed.
"You have been doing that any time this twenty years, mon ami," he said, as he stood upright on his skates and described an easy little figure on the outside edge backward.
"And have always found you on slippery ground." "And never a fall," said De Chauxville over his shoulder, as he shot away across the brilliantly lighted pond.
It was quite dark.