At this moment when Quinny, who had digested Steingall’s argument, was preparing to devour the whole topic, Britt Herkimer, the sculptor, joined them.  He was a guest, just in from Paris, where he had been established twenty years, one of the five men in art whom one counted on the fingers when the word genius was pronounced.  Mentally and physically a German, he spoke English with a French accent.  His hair was cropped en brosse, and in his brown Japanese face only the eyes, staccato, furtive, and drunk with curiosity, could be seen.  He was direct, opinionated, bristling with energy, one of those tireless workers who disdain their youth and treat it as a disease.  His entry into the group of his more socially domesticated confreres was like the return of a wolf-hound among the housedogs.

“Still smashing idols?” he said, slapping the shoulder of Steingall, with whom and Quinny he had passed his student days, “Well, what’s the row?”

“My dear Britt, we are reforming matrimony.  Steingall is for the importation of Mongolian wives,” said De Gollyer, who had written two favorable articles on Herkimer, “while Quinny is for founding a school for wives on most novel and interesting lines.”

“That’s odd,” said Herkimer, with a slight frown.

“On the contrary, no,” said De Gollyer; “we always abolish matrimony from four to six.”

“You didn’t understand me,” said Herkimer, with the sharpness he used in his classes.

From his tone the group perceived that the hazards had brought to him some abrupt coincidence.  They waited with an involuntary silence, which in itself was a rare tribute.

“Remember Rantoul?” said Herkimer, rolling a cigarette and using a jerky diction.

“Clyde Rantoul?” said Stibo.

“Don Furioso Barebones Rantoul, who was in the Quarter with us?” said Quinny.

“Don Furioso, yes,” said Rankin.  “Ever see him?”

“Never.”

“He’s married,” said Quinny; “dropped out.”

“Yes, he married,” said Herkimer, lighting his cigarette.  “Well, I’ve just seen him.”

“He’s a plutocrat or something,” said Towsey, reflectively.

“He’s rich—­ended,” said Steingall as he slapped the table.  “By Jove!  I remember now.”

“Wait,” said Quinny, interposing.

[Illustration:  From his tone the group perceived that the hazards had brought to him some abrupt coincidences]

“I went up to see him yesterday—­just back now,” said Herkimer.  “Rantoul was the biggest man of us all.  It’s a funny tale.  You’re discussing matrimony; here it is.”

II

In the early nineties, when Quinny, Steingall, Herkimer, little Bennett, who afterward roamed down into the Transvaal and fell in with the Foreign Legion, Jacobus and Chatterton, the architects, were living through that fine, rebellious state of overweening youth, Rantoul was the undisputed leader, the arch-rebel, the master-demolisher of the group.