“I will; it is a long one.  I hated the tanner’s business from the very beginning.  Almost the first day an awkward workman scalded me so severely that the traces still remain.”  As he spoke he rolled up his shirt sleeve, and exhibited a scar that covered nearly all one side of his arm.  “Horrified at such a commencement, I entreated the lady superintendent, a hideous old woman in spectacles, to apprentice me to some other trade, but she sternly refused.  She had made up her mind that I should be a tanner.”

“That was very nasty of her,” remarked Paul.

“It was, indeed; but from that day I made up my mind, and I determined to run away as soon as I could get a little money together.  I therefore stuck steadily to the business, and by the end of the year, by means of the strictest economy, I found myself master of thirty francs.  This, I thought, would do, and, with a bundle containing a change of linen, I started on foot for Paris.  I was only thirteen, but I had been gifted by Providence with plenty of that strong will called by many obstinacy.  I had made up my mind to be a painter.”

“And you kept your vow?”

“But with the greatest difficulty.  Ah!  I can close my eyes and see the place where I slept that first night I came to Paris.  I was so exhausted that I did not awake for twelve hours.  I ordered a good breakfast; and finding funds at a very low ebb, I started in search of work.”

Paul smiled.  He, too, remembered his first day in Paris.  He was twenty-two years of age, and had forty francs in his pocket.

“I wanted to make money—­for I felt I needed it—­to enable me to pursue my studies.  A stout man was seated near me at breakfast, and to him I addressed myself.

“‘Look here,’ said I, ’I am thirteen, and much stronger than I look.  I can read and write.  Tell me how I can earn a living.’

“He looked steadily at me, and in a rough voice answered, ’Go to the market to-morrow morning, and try if one of the master masons, who are on the lookout for hands, will employ you.’”

“And you went?”

“I did; and was eagerly watching the head masons, when I perceived my stout friend coming toward me.

“‘I like the looks of you, my lad,’ he said; ’I am an ornamental sculptor.  Do you care to learn my trade?’

“When I heard this proposal, it seemed as if Paradise was opening before me, and I agreed with enthusiasm.”

“And how about your painting?”

“That came later on.  I worked hard at it in all my hours of leisure.  I attended the evening schools, and worked steadily at my art and other branches of education.  It was a very long time before I ventured to indulge in a glass of beer.  ‘No, no, Andre,’ I would say to myself, ‘beer costs six sous; lay the money by.’  Finally, when I was earning from eighty to a hundred francs a week, I was able to give more time to the brush.”

The recital of this life of toil and self-denial, so different from his own selfish and idle career, was inexpressibly mortifying to Paul; but he felt that he was called upon to say something.