the first stroke of the brush,
while bending his manly shoulders and broad neck, about which one
noticed traces of peasant build remaining amid the bourgeois refinement
contributed by the crossing of classes of which he was the outcome.

Silence had ensued, but Jory, his eyes still fixed on the picture,
asked:

'Is it sold?'

Bongrand replied leisurely, like the artist who works when he likes
without care of profit:

'No; I feel paralysed when I've a dealer at my back.' And, without
pausing in his work, he went on talking, growing waggish.

'Ah! people are beginning to make a trade of painting now. Really and
truly I have never seen such a thing before, old as I am getting. For
instance, you, Mr. Amiable Journalist, what a quantity of flowers you
fling to the young ones in that article in which you mentioned me! There
were two or three youngsters spoken of who were simply geniuses, nothing
less.'

Jory burst out laughing.

'Well, when a fellow has a paper, he must make use of it. Besides, the
public likes to have great men discovered for it.'

'No doubt, public stupidity is boundless, and I am quite willing that
you should trade on it. Only I remember the first starts that we old
fellows had. Dash it! We were not spoiled like that, I can tell you.
We had ten years' labour and struggle before us ere we could impose
on people a picture the size of your hand; whereas nowadays the first
hobbledehoy who can stick a figure on its legs makes all the trumpets of
publicity blare. And what kind of publicity is it? A hullabaloo from one
end of France to the other, sudden reputations that shoot up of a night,
and burst upon one like thunderbolts, amid the gaping of the throng.
And I say nothing of the works themselves, those works announced with
salvoes of artillery, awaited amid a delirium of impatience, maddening
Paris for a week, and then falling into everlasting oblivion!'

'This is an indictment against journalism,' said Jory, who had stretched
himself on the couch and lighted another cigar. 'There is a great deal
to be said for and against it, but devil a bit, a man must keep pace
with the times.'

Bongrand shook his head, and then started off again, amid a tremendous
burst of mirth:

'No! no! one can no longer throw off the merest daub without being
hailed as a young "master." Well, if you only knew how your young
masters amuse me!'

But as if these words had led to some other ideas, he cooled down, and
turn