Whereupon one of them, a handsome chap in a soft hat, leans his
elbows squarely on the table in front of him, wags his head saucily
and openly chaffs the solemn regulator. "Ah, bah!" he says, "do we
come _here_ to keep still?" The superintendent threatens to call the
police: the blousards laugh him to scorn. "You would make a fine
figure of yourself bringing here the police, wouldn't you? Look then
at what we have consumed!" pointing to the empty glasses before him on
the table. "Go along, then, do--go quickly--and bring here the police,
old wag that you are!" The regulator perceives the force of this
argument. "But they should be more respectful," he says, appealing to
me: "n'est ce pas, m'sieu?" and with this walks away. The hall is so
large, and the noise which fills it so prodigious, that this little
altercation has attracted no general attention, as it must have done
in a quieter place.
The theatre named by the beuglant's funny singer the "Funambules," to
which he took his friend Thomas under pretence that it was the opera,
is one of the queerest of the blousard's places of resort.
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