him, and
then I heard him open the door upon the public staircase. Presently he
came back, shutting the door behind him as before.

"My dear fellow," he exclaimed, breathlessly, "you have brought luck
with you! What do you think? A sitter--positively, a sitter! Wants to be
sketched in at once--_Vive la France_!"

"Man or woman? Young or old? Plain or pretty?"

"Elderly half-length, feminine gender--Madame Tapotte. They are both
there, Monsieur and Madame Excellent couple--redolent of the
country--husband bucolic, adipose, auriferous--wife arrayed in all her
glory, like the Queen of Sheba. I left them in the Salle d'Attente--told
them I had a sitter--time immensely occupied--half-lengths furiously in
demand ... _Will_ you oblige me by performing the part for a few
minutes, just to carry out the idea?"

"What part?"

"The part of sitter."

"Oh, with pleasure," I replied, laughing. "Do with me what you please,"

"You don't mind? Come! you are the best fellow in the world. Now, if
you'll sit in that arm-chair facing the light--head a little thrown
back, arms folded, chin up ... Capital! You don't know what an effect
this will have upon the provincial mind!"

"But you're not going to let them in! You have no portrait of me to be
at work upon!"

"My dear fellow, I've dozens of half-finished studies, any one of which
will answer the purpose. _Voila_! here is the very thing."

And snatching up a canvas that had been standing till now with its face
to the wall, he flourished it triumphantly before my eyes, and placed it
on the easel.

"Heavens and earth!" I exclaimed, "that's a copy of the Titian in the
Louvre--the 'Young Man with the Glove!'"

"What of that? Our Tapottes will never find out the difference. By the
way, I told them you were a great English Milord, so please keep up the
character."

"I will try to do credit to the peerage."

"And if you would not mind throwing in a word of English every now and
then ... a little Goddam, for instance.. . Eh?"

I laughed and shook my head.

"I will pose for you as Milord with all the pleasure in life," I said;
"only I cannot undertake to pose for the traditional Milord of the
Bouffes Parisiens! However, I will speak some English, and, if you like,
I'll know no French."

"No, no--_diable_! you must know a little, or I can't exchange a word
with you. But very little--the less the better. And now I'll let
them in."

They came; Madame first--tall, buxom, large-