lageolet. Robert
Louis declared that his own particular velvet jacket and big coat would
save him at Barbizon, even if he could not draw any to speak of. "In art
the main thing is to look the part--or else paint superbly well," said
Robert Louis.

The young men got accommodations at "Siron's." This was an inn for
artists, artists of slender means--and the patrons at Siron's held that
all genuine artists had slender means. The rate was five francs a day
for everything, with a modest pro-rata charge for breakage. The rules
were not strict, which prompted Robert Louis to write the great line,
"When formal manners are laid aside, true courtesy is the more rigidly
exacted." Siron's was an inn, but it was really much more like an
exclusive club, for if the boarders objected to any particular arrival,
two days was the outside limit of his stay. Buttinsky the bounder was
interviewed and the early coach took the objectionable one away
forever.

And yet no artist was ever sent away from Siron's--no matter how bad his
work or how threadbare his clothes--if he was a worker; if he really
tried to express beauty, all of his eccentricities were pardoned and his
pot-boiling granted absolution. But the would-be Bohemian, or the man in
search of a thrill, or if in any manner the party on probation suggested
that Madame Siron was not a perfect cook and Monsieur Siron was not a
genuine grand duke in disguise, he was interviewed by Bailley Bodmer,
the local headsman of the clan, and plainly told that escape lay in
flight.

At Siron's there were several Americans, among them being Whistler;
nevertheless Americans as a class were voted objectionable, unless they
were artists, or perchance would-bes who supplied unconscious
entertainment by an excess of boasting. Women, unless accompanied by a
certified male escort, were not desired under any circumstances. And so
matters stood when the "two Stensons" (the average Frenchman could not
say Stevenson) were respectively Exalted Ruler and Chief Councilor of
Siron's.

At that time one must remember that the chambermaid and the landlady
might be allowed to mince across the stage, but men took the leading
parts in life. The cousins had been away on a three-days' tramping tour
through the forest. When they returned they were informed that something
terrible had occurred--a woman had arrived: an American woman with a
daughter aged, say, fourteen, and a son twelve. They had paid a month in
advance