An uproarious burst of laughter was the immediate result, and the singer, interrupted somewhere about his 18th verse, subsided into offended silence.
"Monsieur Mueller is requested to favor the honorable society with a song," cried the President, as soon as the tumult had somewhat subsided.
My red-capped neighbor, answering to that name, begged to be excused, on the score of having pledged his _ut de poitrine_ a week since at the Mont de Piete, without yet having been able to redeem it.

This apology was received with laughter, hisses, and general incredulity.
"But," he added, "I am willing to relate an adventure that happened to myself in Rome two winters ago, if my honorable brother _Chicards_ will be pleased to hear it." An immense burst of approbation from all but Monsieur Tourterelle and the bald sleeper, followed this announcement; and so, after a preliminary _grog au vin_, and another explosive demonstration on the part of the chairman, Monsieur Mueller thus began:-- THE STUDENT'S STORY.
"When I was in Rome, I lodged in the Via Margutta, which, for the benefit of those who have not been there, may be described as a street of studios and stables, crossed at one end by a little roofed gallery with a single window, like a shabby 'Bridge of Sighs,' A gutter runs down the middle, interrupted occasionally by heaps of stable-litter; and the perspective is damaged by rows of linen suspended across the street at uncertain intervals.

The houses in this agreeable thoroughfare are dingy, dilapidated, and comfortless, and all which are not in use as stables, are occupied by artists.

However, it was a very jolly place, and I never was happier anywhere in my life.

I had but just touched my little patrimony, and I was acquainted with plenty of pleasant fellows who used to come down to my rooms at night from the French Academy where they had been studying all day.