o trunks, buckets, brushes, boxes of singular
shape, and an infinity of packages and utensils which the youngest of
the new-comers, who had climbed into the imperial, stowed away with
such celerity that Oscar, who happened to be smiling at his mother, now
standing on the other side of the street, saw none of the paraphernalia
which might have revealed to him the profession of his new travelling
companion.

The gamin, who must have been sixteen years of age, wore a gray blouse
buckled round his waist by a polished leather belt. His cap, jauntily
perched on the side of his head, seemed the sign of a merry nature, and
so did the picturesque disorder of the curly brown hair which fell upon
his shoulders. A black-silk cravat drew a line round his very white
neck, and added to the vivacity of his bright gray eyes. The animation
of his brown and rosy face, the moulding of his rather large lips, the
ears detached from his head, his slightly turned-up nose,--in fact, all
the details of his face proclaimed the lively spirit of a Figaro, and
the careless gayety of youth, while the vivacity of his gesture and his
mocking eye revealed an intellect already developed by the practice of a
profession adopted very early in life. As he had already some claims
to personal value, this child, made man by Art or by vocation, seemed
indifferent to the question of costume; for he looked at his boots,
which had not been polished, with a quizzical air, and searched for
the spots on his brown Holland trousers less to remove them than to see
their effect.

"I'm in style," he said, giving himself a shake and addressing his
companion.

The glance of the latter, showed authority over his adept, in whom
a practised eye would at once have recognized the joyous pupil of a
painter, called in the argot of the studios a "rapin."

"Behave yourself, Mistigris," said his master, giving him the nickname
which the studio had no doubt bestowed upon him.

The master was a slight and pale young man, with extremely thick black
hair, worn in a disorder that was actually fantastic. But this abundant
mass of hair seemed necessary to an enormous head, whose vast forehead
proclaimed a precocious intellect. A strained and harassed face, too
original to be ugly, was hollowed as if this noticeable young man
suffered from some chronic malady, or from privations caused by poverty
(the most terrible of all chronic maladies), or from griefs too recent
to be forgotten. His