76
than for the new-born babe to take to the breast."
"But when did your first visit to a brothel take place?"
"Upon leaving college, when the mystic laurel and bays had wreathed our brows. According to tradition we were to partake of a farewell supper and make jolly together, before separating in our divers paths in life."
"Yes, I remember those merry suppers of the Quartier Latin."
"When the supper was over—"
"And everyone more or less tipsy—"
"Precisely; it was agreed that we should pass the evening in visiting some of the houses of nightly entertainment. Although I was myself rather merry, and usually up to any kind of joke, still I felt somewhat shy, and would willingly have given my friends the slip, rather than expose myself to their ridicule and to all the horrors of syphilis; but do what I could it was impossible to get rid of them.
"They called me a sneak, they imagined that I wanted to spend the evening with some
