steel. They all sat down and ordered beer,
after which the painter resumed:

'Do you know that I went to look for you at your father's; and a nice
reception he gave me.'

Fagerolles, who affected a low devil-may-care style, slapped his thighs.
'Oh, the old fellow plagues me! I hooked it this morning, after a row.
He wants me to draw some things for his beastly zinc stuff. As if I
hadn't enough zinc stuff at the Art School.'

This slap at the professors delighted the young man's friends. He amused
them and made himself their idol by dint of alternate flattery and
blame. His smile went from one to the other, while, by the aid of a few
drops of beer spilt on the table, his long nimble fingers began tracing
complicated sketches. His art evidently came very easily to him; it
seemed as if he could do anything with a turn of the hand.

'And Gagniere?' asked Mahoudeau; 'haven't you seen him?'

'No; I have been here for the last hour.'

Just then Jory, who had remained silent, nudged Sandoz, and directed his
attention to a girl seated with a gentleman at a table at the back of
the room. There were only two other customers present, two sergeants,
who were playing cards. The girl was almost a child, one of those young
Parisian hussies who are as lank as ever at eighteen. She suggested a
frizzy poodle--with the shower of fair little locks that fell over
her dainty little nose, and her large smiling mouth, set between rosy
cheeks. She was turning over the leaves of an illustrated paper, while
the gentleman accompanying her gravely sipped a glass of Madeira;
but every other minute she darted gay glances from over the newspaper
towards the band of artists.

'Pretty, isn't she?' whispered Jory. 'Who is she staring at? Why, she's
looking at me.'

But Fagerolles suddenly broke in: 'I say, no nonsense. Don't imagine
that I have been here for the last hour merely waiting for you.'

The others laughed; and lowering his voice he told them about the girl,
who was named Irma Becot. She was the daughter of a grocer in the Rue
Montorgueil, and had been to school in the neighbourhood till she
was sixteen, writing her exercises between two bags of lentils, and
finishing off her education on her father's doorstep, lolling about on
the pavement, amidst the jostling of the throng, and learning all about
life from the everlasting tittle-tattle of the cooks, who retailed all
the scandal of the neighbourhood while waiting for five sous' worth