they did not care for the rest. They behaved very well on the
whole, and, as far as I am aware, did not make ugly faces at me when I
was looking the other way. I am sure they did not like me though; their
fancy men were two _garcons coiffeurs_ in a barber's shop close by, and
so I hadn't a fair start.

That was my first experience as a portrait-painter. From that day to
this I have truly loved my profession, undeterred by the fact that the
course of true love does not always run smooth. At any rate that
five-franc piece which Madame Roufflard-Tusserand took from the depths
of her apron pocket and handed to me, gave me more satisfaction than
many a "Pay to F. Moscheles, Esq.," that has since followed.

I wonder whether my drawing still exists, and, if so, whether it is
going down as an heirloom from generation to generation with the
bedstead, the looking-glass, and the middle-aged tomcat lady.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER V

CLAUDE RAOUL DUPONT

I well remember the first words of French that I mastered, and the
sensation I created when I, a very small boy, irrepressibly burst forth
with my declaration:

"O Madam, kay voos aite bell!"

This was addressed across the friendly supper table to Madame de R., who
with her husband, the well-known portrait-painter, was spending her
honeymoon at Boulogne.

To Boulogne we too had gone, as people went then when they wanted a
change of air, or as they go now to Africa or the antipodes.

On this occasion our party consisted of my parents, three sisters,
myself, and an English nurse, who, from first to last, was unutterably
shocked by what she called the outrageous proceedings of the foreigners,
and by the fearful language that parrot used, who always gathered a
little sympathetic crowd in front of the shell and wooden-spade shop.

My sisters had a French governess of the approved type.

"Maitre Corbeau sur un arbre perche," she recited to me with
conventional emphasis and genuine affectation. On such occasions I
stood staring at her, surprised at the amount of mouth-twisting and
wriggling it took to talk French. Then I tried to do as much, and said:

"Mayter Korbow sure unn ahber per Shay."

"Perrrche," she interposed, and

"Pure Shay," I repeated.

"Mais non, mon petit cheri, perrrr--che!" and so on, till we got to
"apeupres ce langage," the "a pew pray" being, I recollect, a terrible
stumbling-block.

I was about eighteen when I met that handsome Madame de