ross him the next afternoon sitting on a stone bench in the
Luxembourg Gardens. His hat was slouched forward over his eyes. His hand
supported his chin so that his long straggling beard protruded in a
curious Egyptian horizontality. His ill-laced boots innocent as usual of
blacking, for he would not allow Blanquette to touch them, were stuck
out ostentatiously, and to the peril of the near passers-by. He had
never during our acquaintance manifested any sense of the dandified; on
our travels he had worn the casual, unnoticeable dress of the peasant,
save when he had masqueraded in the pearl-buttoned velveteens; in London
a swaggering air of braggadocio had set off his Bohemian garb: but never
had the demoralised disreputability of Paragot struck me until I saw him
in the Luxembourg Gardens.

Everything else wore a startlingly fresh appearance, after the heavy
rains. The gravel walk had the prim neatness of a Peter de Hoogh garden
path. The white balustrades and flights of steps around the great
circle, the statuary and the fountains in the middle lake, flashed pure.
The enormous white caps of nurses, their gay silk streamers fluttering
behind them, the white-clad children, the light summer dresses of women;
the patches of white newspaper held by other loungers on the seats; a
dazzling bit of cirro-cumulus scudding across the clear Paris sky; the
pale dome of the Pantheon rising to the East; the background of the
Luxembourg itself in which one was only conscious of the high lights on
the long bold cornices; all set the key of the picture and gave it
symphonic value. The eye rejected everything but the whites and the
pearl greys, subordinating all other tones to its impression of
fantastic purity.

And there like an ink blot splashed on the picture, sat Paragot. The
very foulest odd-volume of Montesquieu's "Esprit des Lois" which could
be picked up on the quays lay unopened on his knee. Not until Narcisse,
who was sleeping at his feet, jumped up and barked a welcome around me
did Paragot notice my approach. He held out his hand, and the
finger-nails seemed longer and dirtier than ever. He drew me down to the
seat beside him.

"You were asleep when I ran in this morning, Master," said I
apologetically, for it was the first time I had seen him that day.

"Since then I have been thinking, my little Asticot. It is a vain
occupation for a May afternoon, and it makes your head ache. I should be
much better employed carting m