“Now, coachman, I am going to keep you all day, so do not refuse to drink a glass with me to keep up your strength.”

An hour after the poet and the coachman had breakfasted like old friends; six empty bottles testified that neither one nor the other were likely to die of thirst.  The poet grumbled internally to himself as he thought of the three bottles of Clos-Vougeot, one of Leoville, two of Moulin-au-Vent, that had been consumed, and the fellow not drunk yet.  Then he determined to try surer means, and called to the waiter to bring champagne.  “It is no use, young fellow,” laughed the coachman, who was familiar at least, if he was not drunk; “champagne won’t make any difference; if you counted on that to get my passport, you reckoned without your host!”—­“The devil I did,” cried the poor young man, horrified to see his scheme fall through, and to think of the prodigious length of the bill he should have to pay for nothing.—­“Others, have tried it on, but I am too wide awake by half,” said the coachman, adding as he emptied the last bottle into his glass, “give me two ten-franc pieces and I will get you through.”—­“How can I be grateful enough?” cried the poet, although in reality he felt rather humiliated to find that the grand scene in his fourth act had not succeeded.—­“Call the waiter, and pay the bill.”  The waiter was called, and the bill paid with a sigh.  “Now give me your jacket.”—­“My jacket?”—­“Yes, this thing in velvet you have on your back.”  The poet did as he was bid.  “Now your waistcoat and trousers.”—­“My trousers!  Oh, insatiable coachman!”—­“Make haste will you, or else I shall take you to the nearest guard-room for a confounded refractaire, as you are.”  The clothes were immediately given up.  “Very well; now take mine, dress yourself in them, and let’s be off.”  While the young man was putting on with decided distaste the garments of the cocher, the latter managed to introduce his ponderous bulk into those of the poet.  This done, out they went.  “Get up on the box.”—­“On the box?”—­“Yes, idiot,” said the coachman, growing more and more familiar; “I am going to get into the cab, now drive me wherever you please.”  The plan was a complete success.  At the Porte de Chatillon the disguised poet exhibited his passport, and the National Guard who looked in at the window of the carriage cried out, “Oh, he may pass; he might be my grandfather.”  The cab rolled over the draw-bridge, and it was in this way that M ...,—­ah!  I was just going to let the cat out of the bag—­it was in this way that our young poet broke the law of the Commune, and managed to dine that same evening at the Hotel des Reservoirs at Versailles, with a deputy of the right on his left hand, and a deputy of the left on his right hand.