wed with an exuberance of charms
and graces characteristic of a Rubens model.

A fellow-student of mine was their lodger, a handsome young German,
brimful of talent, but sadly deficient in health. He had always held
most rigid principles on questions of morality, but unfortunately
they failed one day in their application, owing to the less settled
views entertained by Madame Van-der-something on such subjects. She
certainly gave him much affection on the one hand, but on the other
she so audaciously appropriated those of his goods and chattels that
could be turned into money, that the police had to intervene, and she
eventually found herself before a judge and jury. There, however, she
managed so well to cast all responsibility on her husband, who, to
this day, I believe was quite innocent, that--"cherchez la femme"--she
got off, and he was sentenced to a term of imprisonment.

Now if Van Ostade or Teniers had risen to prosecute him for forging
their signatures, and he had been found guilty and condemned to severe
punishment, it would have served him right. He was a perfect gem of
a forger. He picked up a stock of those dirty old pictures painted on
worm-eaten panels that used to abound in the sale-rooms of Antwerp.
On these he would paint what might be called replicas with variations,
cribbing left and right from old mildewed prints that were scattered
all about the floor. He would scrape and scumble, brighten and deaden
with oils and varnishes; he would dodge and manipulate till his
picture, after a given time spent in a damp cellar, would emerge as a
genuine old master. I once asked a dealer whom I knew to be a regular
customer of his, at what price he sold one of those productions. "I
really can't say," he answered; "I only do wholesale business. I buy
for exportation to England and America." If any of my friends here
or over there possess some work of Van-der-something's, I sincerely
congratulate them, for the little man was a genius in his way.

Of my friend the German I have only to say that, poor fellow, he spent
but a short life of pleasure and of pain. What became of his Circe
I never sought to know. It was a clear case of "Ne cherchez pas la
femme!"

The first friend I made on my arrival in Antwerp was Jean Heyermans
(detto il Pegghi), and a very useful one he proved himself, for he at
once took me in hand, helped me to find home and hearth, and generally
gave me the correct tip, so valuable to the strang