We did push it about, and so well that about ten o'clock in the evening all the sympathy left between us was manifested by protestations, sight being lost; and by those explosions of drunken tenderness which develope all the infirmities of the human heart.
When the hour of parting had arrived, our new acquaintances, and particularly the softer sex, were completely drunk. Riboulet and his mistress were only somewhat elevated, as well as myself; they had preserved their senses, but to appear all in unison we pretended to be so tipsy as to be unable to walk; formed into a phalanx, because in that way the gusts of wind are less to be feared, we left the theatre of our pleasures. Then, that we might neutralize, by the aid of a chant, the reeling tendencies of our troop, Riboulet, with a voice whose echoes vibrated in every court and alley, began to sing, in the most finished slang of his time, one of those ballads with a chorus, which are as long as to-day and to-morrow.
Pour apprendre à goupiner,[2]
J'ai rencontre la mercandière,[3]
Lonfa malura dondaine,
Qui du pivois solisait,[4]
Lonfa malura dondé.
