This was my last walk in dreamland, perhaps, and
dream-hours are uncertain, and I would make the most of them, and
look about me.
I walked towards Ranelagh, a kind of casino, where they used to give
balls and theatrical performances on Sunday and Thursday nights (and
where afterwards Rossini spent the latter years of his life; then it was
pulled down, I am told, to make room for many smart little villas).
In the meadow opposite M. Erard's park, Saindou's school-boys were
playing rounders--_la balle au camp_--from which I concluded it was a
Thursday afternoon, a half-holiday; if they had had clean shirts on
(which they had not) it would have been Sunday, and the holiday a
whole one.
I knew them all, and the two _pions_, or ushers, M. Lartigue and _le
petit Cazal_; but no longer cared for them or found them amusing or
interesting in the least.
Opposite the Ranelagh a few old hackney-coach men were pacifically
killing time by a game of _bouchon_--knocking sous off a cork with other
sous--great fat sous and double sous long gone out of fashion. It is a
very good game, and I watched it for a while and envied the
long-dead players.
Close by was a small wooden shed, or _baraque_, prettily painted and
glazed, and ornamented at the top with little tricolor flags; it
belonged to a couple of old ladies, Mere Manette and Grandmere
Manette-the two oldest women ever seen.
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