Paragot.

"My son," said he when relating to me this adventure, "do not cultivate
a habit of affability towards widows of the lower middle classes. There
was once a murderer's widow of Prague--"

"I know," said I.

"How?"

"There was an old stocking."

"I forgot," said he, and his laughing face darkened and I saw that he
fell to thinking of Joanna.

* * * * *

Although much of my leisure was absorbed by the companionship of my
beloved Master and Blanquette, I yet had an individual life of my own. I
made dozens of acquaintances and one or two friends. I had not a care in
the world. Bisard, the great man attached to the life school in Janot's
atelier, proclaimed me one of the best of my year, and sent my heart
leaping sky-high. I worked early and late. I also played the fool as
(worse luck) only boyhood can. With my fellows, arm in arm through the
streets, I shouted imbecile songs. I went to all kinds of reprehensible
places--to the _bals du quartier_, for instance, where we danced with
simple-minded damsels who thought _choucroute garnie_ a generous supper
and a bottle of _vin cachete_ as setting the seal of all that was most
distinguished upon the host. With the first five francs that I made by
selling a drawing I treated Fanchette, the little model I kissed on the
stairs, to a trip to Saint-Cloud. Five francs went prodigiously far in
those days. They had to, as some of us were desperately poor and could
afford but one meal a day. Fortunate youth that I was, whenever money
ran short, instead of borrowing or starving, I had only to climb to
Blanquette and open my mouth like a young bird and she filled it with
nice fat things. Poor sandalled Cazalet of the yellow hair, on the other
hand, lived sometimes for a week on dry bread and water. It was partly
his own fault; for had he chosen to make saleable drawings he too might
have had five francs wherewith to take Fanchette to Saint-Cloud. Pretty
little Pierrettes in frills and pointed caps are more attractive to the
cheap purchaser than ugly souls writhing in torment; and really they are
quite as artistic. We quarrelled fiercely over this one day, and he
challenged me to a duel. I replied that I had no money to buy pistols.
Neither had he, he retorted, but I could borrow a sabre. He himself had
one. His father had been an officer. Whereupon the studio bawled in
gleeful unison "_Voici le sabre, le sabre de mon pere_," and dragged us
in