[Illustration:  LE ’IGH KICK.  At the Moulin Rouge. From “Paris and Some Parisians"]

It is trite to remark that comedy is akin to tragedy, and it is in the natural order of things that an artist of so keen a perception of the comedy of life should be able to strike with such truth and precision the note of pathos or of tragedy.

[Illustration:  A SPEECH AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT. From “Paris and Some Parisians"]

The “Lapin Agile,” a strange little cafe in that “other Montmartre” which the tourist knoweth not, yielded abundance of material to Frank Reynolds’ pencil.  Needless to say, the curious may search all Paris and find no such sign as that of “The Sprightly Rabbit,” but it is not impossible that some may recognise, under his disguise, “Felix,” the ruffianly but accomplished host, who was the model for the sketch upon page 43, one of the happiest examples in the present volume of the artist’s skill in portraiture, as well as of his rare technique in pen-and-ink.  Equally happy is the sketch which depicts “‘Chacun’ with his ‘Chacune’” at the Moulin de la Galette (page 13), in which the pose of the figures and the expression upon their faces exhibit, if one may put it so, the very perfection of naturalness.  For a study of expression, again, it would be difficult, or indeed impossible, to better the further of the two figures in the drawing of “Le ’Igh Kick,” made one night at the Moulin Rouge.  As to pose, could there be anything more exactly right than the attitude of the gentleman “with bright-blue goggle eyes, and a dress-shirt front in accordion pleats,” who, on the occasion when his portrait was made, had been to the races and backed a winner, and was delivering “a long and extremely incoherent speech.”

[Illustration:  FELIX OF THE “LAPIN AGILE”. From “Paris and Some Parisians”]

[Illustration:  PICTURES OF PARIS AND SOME PARISIANS]

FRANK REYNOLDS.  V.

Looking through these inimitable sketches of Paris and Parisians, one indulges a fond hope that some day Frank Reynolds will produce a companion set of drawings illustrative of London life.  It is answered, perhaps, that Paris affords a unique opportunity such as the artist would hardly find at home; but the supposition is due, of course, only to the familiarity of our immediate surroundings and the difficulty which invariably arises, in consequence, of focussing them to their true proportions.  Needless to say, Frank Reynolds has already worked the rich vein of Cockney life to a considerable extent, but his essays in this direction only increase the desire to see an exhaustive pictorial commentary from his pencil and pen upon the men and manners of our own city.  Such quaint humour as is contained in his study of “Sunday Clothes at Bethnal Green” (page 17), suggests what possibilities the subject presents.