"What do you sell, mon ami ?" was Müller's invariable reply.
"What do you want, m'sieur?"
"Twenty thousand francs per annum, and the prettiest wife in Paris," says my friend; a reply which is sure to evoke something spirituel, after the manner of the locality.
"This is the most amusing place in Paris," observes he. "Like the Alsatia of old London, it has its own peculiar argot, and its own peculiar privileges. The activity of its commerce is amazing. If you buy a pocket-handkerchief at the first stall you come to, and leave it unprotected in your coat-pocket for five minutes, you may purchase it again at the other end of the alley before you leave. As for the resources of the market, they are inexhaustible. You may buy anything you please here, from a Court suit to a cargo of old rags. In this alley (which is the aristocratic quarter), are sold old jewelry, old china, old furniture, silks that have rustled at the Tuileries; fans that may have fluttered at the opera; gloves once fitted to tiny hands, and yet bearing a light soil where the rings were worn beneath; laces that may have been the property of Countesses or Cardinals; masquerade suits, epaulets, uniforms, furs, perfumes, artificial flowers, and all sorts of elegant superfluities, most of which have descended to the merchants of the Temple through the hands of ladies-maids and valets. Yonder lies the district called the 'Forêt Noire'--a land of unpleasing atmosphere inhabited by cobblers and clothes-menders. Down to the left you see nothing but rag and bottle-shops, old iron stores, and lumber of every kind. Here you find chiefly household articles, bedding, upholstery, crockery, and so forth."
"What will you buy, Messieurs?" continued to be the cry, as we moved along arm-in-arm, elbowing our way through the crowd, and exploring this singular scene in all directions.
"What will you buy, messieurs?" shouts one salesman. "A carpet? A capital carpet, neither too large nor too small. Just the size you want!"
"A hat, m'sieur, better than new," cries another; "just aired by the last owner."
"A coat that will fit you better than if it had been made for you?"
"A pair of boots? Dress-boots, dancing-boots, walking-boots, morning-boots, evening-boots, riding-boots, fishing-boots, hunting-boots. All sorts, m'sieur--all sorts!"
"A cloak, m'sieur?"