Through a long,
winding, narrow, dark and dirty passage, up a rickety stone staircase,
through another passage, and we stand in a crowded hall, at whose
lower end a rude stage is erected, on which a ragged man is bawling a
comic song. In the midst of it there is a disturbance: a drunken man
has climbed upon the back of a seat to light his pipe at the
chandelier, and falling thence has enraged the fallen-upon to that
extent that a fight ensues. In a twinkling the tipsy man is dragged
out of the door, to the delight of the audience, who shout "Bravo!"
as he disappears. The concert is not entertaining, and we follow him
out. He is carefully propped up against a wall by those who put him
into the street, and when we come upon him is growling maledictions
upon his enemies, with his hair about his eyes and his hands clawing
the air. Four bareheaded women, roaring with laughter, come marching
abreast along the middle of the street, and picking up the drunkard's
battered hat disappear in the gloomy distance, boisterously thrusting
the hat upon each other's heads in turn.
A cafe chantant of a more pretentious sort than the Maison Doucieux,
but still the peculiar resort of the blousard--for there are cafe
chantants of many grades in Paris--may be found in one of the back
streets near the Boulevard St.
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