On the pavement just under our window were seated the usual crowd of Boulevard idlers, sipping their _al fresco_ absinthe, and _grog-au-vin._ In the very next room, divided from us by only a slender partition, was a noisy party of young men and girls.

We could hear their bursts of merriment, the chinking of their glasses as they pledged one another, the popping of the champagne corks, and almost the very jests that passed from lip to lip.

Presently a band came and played at the corner of an adjoining street.

All was mirth, all was life, all was amusement and dissipation both in-doors and out-of-doors, in the "care-charming" city of Paris on that pleasant September night; and we, of course, were gay and noisy, like our neighbors.

Dalrymple and Mueller could scarcely be called new acquaintances.