"And to fill one with the profoundest respect for one's tailor. After all, it's broad-cloth makes the man."
"But these are not men--they are caricatures."
"Every man is a caricature of himself when you strip him," said Müller, epigrammatically. "Look at that scarecrow just opposite. He passes for an Adonis, de par le monde."
I looked and recognised the Count de Rivarol, a tall young man, an élégant of the first water, a curled darling of society, a professed lady-killer, whom I had met many a time in attendance on Madame de Marignan. He now looked like a monkey:--
.... "long, and lank and brown,
As in the ribb'd sea sand!"
"Gracious heavens!" I exclaimed, "what would become of the world, if clothes went out of fashion?"
"Humph!--one half of us, my dear fellow, would commit suicide."
At the upper end of the bath was a semicircular platform somewhat loftier than the rest, called the Amphitheatre. This, I learned, was the place of honor. Here clustered the élite of the swimmers; here they discussed the great principles of their art, and passed judgment on the performances of those less skilful than themselves. To the right of the Amphitheatre rose a slender spiral staircase, like an openwork pillar of iron, with a tiny circular platform on the top, half surrounded by a light iron rail. This conspicuous perch, like the pillar of St. Simeon Stylites, was every now and then surmounted by the gaunt figure of some ambitious plunger who, after attitudinizing awhile in the pose of Napoleon on the column Vendôme, would join his hands above his head and take a tremendous "header" into the gulf below. When this feat was successfully performed, the élite in the Amphitheatre applauded graciously.
And now, what with swimming, and lounging, and looking on, some two hours had slipped by, and we were both hungry and tired, Müller proposed that we should breakfast at the Café Procope.
"But why not here?" I asked, as a delicious breeze from the buffet came wafting by "like a steam of rich distilled perfumes."