One Sunday afternoon, at his suggestion, we went together to the studio of Z——­, and I introduced him to the Master.  But, as we moved about the vast room, among those small, priceless canvases, the consciousness grew upon me that my companion was in some distress of mind.  His eye wandered; his utterances were brief and dry.  At length he got me into a corner, and remarked, ’You introduced me simply as Mr. Blake.  He evidently doesn’t realise who I am.’

’Oh, these Frenchmen are so indifferent to things not French, you know,’ said I.

’Yes—­but—­still—­I wish you could make an occasion to let him know.  In introducing me you might have added “a distinguished English author."’

‘But do you quite realise who he is?’ I cried.  ’He’s jolly near the most distinguished living painter.’

’Never mind.  He is treating me now as he might Brown, Jones, or Robinson.’  As this was with a superfine consideration, it seemed unreasonable to demand a difference.  Nevertheless, I seized an opportunity to whisper in the Master’s ear a word or two to the desired effect. ‘Tiens!’ he returned composedly, and continued to treat his visitor precisely as he had done from the beginning.

Blake had announced that he wanted to gather information about the Latin Quarter; and I don’t doubt that his purpose was sincere, but he employed a novel method of attaining it.  We took him everywhere, we showed him everything; I could never observe that he either looked or listened.  He would sit (or stand or walk), his eye craving admiration from our faces; his tongue wagging about himself; his early hardships, his first success, his habits of work, his troubles with his wife, his liaison with Lady Blank, his tastes in fruits and wines, his handwriting, his very teeth and boots.  He passed his life in a sort of trance, an ecstacy of self-absorption; he had fallen in love with his own conception of himself, like a metaphysical Narcissus.  This idiosyncrasy was the means of defeating various conspiracies, in which Chalks, of course, was the prime mover, calculated to impose upon his credulity, and send him back to London loaded down with misinformation.

‘His cheek, by Christopher!’ cried Chalks.  ’Live in the Quarter for a fortnight, keep his eyes and ears shut, talk perpetually of Davis Blake, and read nothing but his own works, and then go home and write a book about it. I’ll quarter him!’

But Chalks counted without his man.  That Monsieur Bullier, the founder of the Closerie des Lilas, was also Professor of Moral Philosophy in the College de France; that the word etudiante (for Blake had only a tourist’s smattering of French) should literally be translated student, and that the young ladies who bore it as a name were indeed pursuing rigorous courses of study at the Sorbonne; that it was obligatory upon a freshman (nouveau) in the Quarter to shave his head and wear wooden shoes for the first month after his matriculation—­from these and kindred superstitions Blake was saved by his grand talent for never paying attention.