masks of the Apollo, the Laocoon, the Hercules Farnese, and other foreigners of distinction.  Upon the chimney-piece were displayed a pair of foils, a lute, a skull, an antique German drinking-mug, and several very modern empty bottles.  In the middle of the room stood two large easels, a divan, a round table, and three or four chairs; while the floor was thickly strewn with empty color-tubes, bits of painting-rag, corks, cigar-ends, and all kinds of miscellaneous litter.

All these things I had observed as I passed in; for this, be it remembered, was my first visit to Mueller in his own territory.

I heard him go through the studio and close the door behind 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.”