But
they are keenly on the alert, these gendarmes. They cast their eyes on
us where we sit with a sidelong glance which seems to say, "We see
you, you two men in tall hats," for we presently find we are
conspicuous in this crowd by the hats we wear. A ragamuffin Pierrot in
a white nightcap is seen to touch a trousered female on the arm and
look leeringly at us, and is overheard to say, "Vois donc, Delphine,
those aristos there--have they hats?--quoi?" Whereupon I nod
good-naturedly to them, and Delphine comes up to us with a smile. "One
sees easily thou art not Parisian, little father _(p'tit pere_)" she
says to me. "Rest tranquil, then--thou shalt see dancing--rest
tranquil." And with a flirt of her heel she bounds into the middle of
the floor with her cavalier as the orchestra sounds the preliminary
strain of a waltz.
It is the custom here for the orchestra to sound this preliminary
note as a foretaste to the dancers of the coming piece. Then the
musicians rest on their instruments while the two men in authority on
the floor set up a stentorian call of "Advance, mesdames and
messieurs: one is about to begin the waltz," or the polka, as the name
of the coming dance may be.
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