They had met some few times at the _Chicards_, and also, some years before, in Rome.

What stories they told of artists whom they had known! What fun they made of Academic dons and grave professors high in authority! What pictures they drew, of life in Rome--in Vienna--in Paris! Though we had no ladies of our party and were only three in number, I am not sure that the merry-makers in the next room laughed any louder or oftener than we! At length the clock on the mantelpiece warned us that it was already half-past nine, and that we had been three hours at dinner.

It was clearly time to vary the evening's amusement in some way or other, and the only question was what next to do?
Should we go to a billiard-room?
Or to the Salle Valentinois?
Or to some of the cheap theatres on the Boulevard du Temple?
Or to the Tableaux Vivants?
Or the Cafe des Aveugles?
Or take a drive round by the Champs Elysees in an open fly?
At length Mueller remembered that some fellow-students were giving a party that evening, and offered to introduce us.
"It is up five pairs of stairs, in the Quartier Latin," said he; "but thoroughly jolly--all students and grisettes.

They'll be delighted to see us." This admirable proposition was no sooner made than acted upon; so we started immediately, and Dalrymple, who seemed to be well acquainted with the usages of student-life, proposed that we should take with us a store of sweetmeats for the ladies.
"There subsists," observed he, "a mysterious elective affinity between the grisette and the chocolate bon-bon.

He who can skilfully exhibit the latter, is almost certain to win the heart of the former.