ck had his Jill, but, as a rule,
it was Jill who had set the ball rolling.

The Quartier-Latin not only sheltered sucking lawyers and doctors,
budding professors and savans and litterateurs, but artists whose names
have since then become world-renowned. It was with some of these that I
was most thrown in contact in that quarter, partly from inclination,
because from my earliest youth I have been fonder of pictures than of
books, partly because at that time I had already seen so many authors of
fame, most of whom were the intimate acquaintances of a connection of
mine, that I cared little to seek the society of those who had not
arrived at that stage. I was very young, and, though not devoid of faith
in possibilities, too mentally indolent when judgment in that respect
involved the sitting down to manuscripts. It was so much easier and
charming to be able to discover a budding genius by a mere glance at a
good sketch, even when the latter was drawn in charcoal on a not
particularly clean "whitewashed" wall.

I was scarcely more than a stripling when one morning such a sketch
appeared on the walls of Paris, and considerably mystified, while it at
the same time amused the inhabitants of the capital. It was not the work
of what we in England would call a "seascape and mackerel artist," for
no such individual stood by to ask toll of the admirers; it was not an
advertisement, for in those days that mode of mural publicity was
scarcely born, let alone in its infancy, in Paris. What, then, was this
colossal, monumental nose, the like of which I have only seen on the
faces of four human beings, one of whom was Hyacinth, the famous actor
of the Palais-Royal, the other three being M. d'Argout, the Governor of
the Bank of France; M. de Jussieu, the Director of the Jardin des
Plantes; and Lasailly, Balzac's secretary? What was this colossal nose,
with a ridiculously small head and body attached to it? The nasal organ
was certainly phenomenal, even allowing for the permissible exaggeration
of the caricaturist, but it could surely not be the only title of its
owner to this sudden leap into fame! Was it a performing nose, or one
endowed with extraordinary powers of smell? I puzzled over the question
for several days, until one morning I happened to run against my old
tutor, looking at the picture and laughing till the tears ran down his
wrinkled cheeks. It was a positive pleasure to see him. "C'est bien lui,
c'est bien lui," he exclai