After which the girl retook her place in the fiacre and said "Allons!" in a subdued tone that strongly contrasted with her former acerbity.
"Sure!" said the cabby to himself,—"she's drunk." And he looked forward to the near future rather gloomily.
His suspicion seemed more than justified when she again said Place Monge instead of Square Monge, the former being nearly half a mile farther. He almost collapsed when she finally got down and not only handed him the legal fare without dispute but double the usual pourboire.
"Toujours de même ces femmes-là!" he growled, philosophically. Which meant that women were pretty much alike,—you never could tell what one of them would do.
Mlle. Fouchette, quite indifferent at any time to the private judgment of the cab-driving world, now silently and swiftly pursued the uneven tenor of her thoughts, not yet manifest. She hurried along the sombre walls of the giant caserne de la garde on the Rue Ortolan, plunged across the crowded Rue Mouffetard, and entered the picturesque little wine-shop on the corner.
It was a low, grim, two-story affair in time-worn stone, the door and windows heavily grilled in the elaborate and artistic wrought-iron work of the middle ages. A heavy oaken door supplemented the big barred gate and added to the ancient prison-like appearance of the place. Against the grilles of the Rue Mouffetard hung specimens of the filthy illustrated Paris papers, either the pictures or text of which would debar them from any respectable English-speaking community. Over the door opening into the Rue du Pot de Fer and below a lamp of that exquisite iron-work which is now one of the lost arts was displayed a small bush, intimating that, in spite of the strong improbability, good wine was to be had inside.
While a casual glance showed that the rooms above could not be high enough of ceiling for an ordinary individual to stand upright, the flowers in the little square recessed and grilled windows showed that this upper portion was inhabited. It was connected with the wine-shop below by a narrow and very much worn stone staircase, which ascended "à tire-bouchon," or corkscrew fashion, like the steep steps of a light-house.
As to the general reputation of the neighborhood, Mlle. Fouchette knew it to be "assez mauvaise,"—tolerably bad,—though it was not this knowledge that induced her to complete her journey on foot.
Her entrance caused a subdued but perceptible flutter among the occupants of the resort. These were, at the moment, four respectable-looking men in blouses, an old gentleman in the last stage of genteel rustiness, and a couple of camelots in the second stage of drunkenness,—that of undying friendship. The four, who appeared to be worthy tradesmen of the neighborhood, occupied a far table in the small and time-begrimed room, where they played at cards for small stakes; the rusty old gentleman sat alone with a half-emptied beer-glass and an evening newspaper before him; the street-hawkers were standing at the zinc, which in Paris represents our American bar, discussing the events of the day in the hoarse-lunged, insolent tone of their class.
Presiding over the establishment was—yes, it was Madame Podvin. Somewhat stouter, redder of face, more piggy of eye, with more decided whiskers, but still Madame Podvin.