art neither sought nor gave advice.  It was said that in the little studio in the Rue Campagne Premiere, which served him for work-room and bed-room, he had wonderful pictures which would make his reputation if only he could be induced to exhibit them.  He could not afford a model but painted still life, and Lawson constantly talked of a plate of apples which he declared was a masterpiece.  He was fastidious, and, aiming at something he did not quite fully grasp, was constantly dissatisfied with his work as a whole:  perhaps a part would please him, the forearm or the leg and foot of a figure, a glass or a cup in a still-life; and he would cut this out and keep it, destroying the rest of the canvas; so that when people invited themselves to see his work he could truthfully answer that he had not a single picture to show.  In Brittany he had come across a painter whom nobody else had heard of, a queer fellow who had been a stockbroker and taken up painting at middle-age, and he was greatly influenced by his work.  He was turning his back on the impressionists and working out for himself painfully an individual way not only of painting but of seeing.  Philip felt in him something strangely original.

At Gravier’s where they ate, and in the evening at the Versailles or at the Closerie des Lilas Clutton was inclined to taciturnity.  He sat quietly, with a sardonic expression on his gaunt face, and spoke only when the opportunity occurred to throw in a witticism.  He liked a butt and was most cheerful when someone was there on whom he could exercise his sarcasm.  He seldom talked of anything but painting, and then only with the one or two persons whom he thought worth while.  Philip wondered whether there was in him really anything:  his reticence, the haggard look of him, the pungent humour, seemed to suggest personality, but might be no more than an effective mask which covered nothing.

With Lawson on the other hand Philip soon grew intimate.  He had a variety of interests which made him an agreeable companion.  He read more than most of the students and though his income was small, loved to buy books.  He lent them willingly; and Philip became acquainted with Flaubert and Balzac, with Verlaine, Heredia, and Villiers de l’Isle Adam.  They went to plays together and sometimes to the gallery of the Opera Comique.  There was the Odeon quite near them, and Philip soon shared his friend’s passion for the tragedians of Louis XIV and the sonorous Alexandrine.  In the Rue Taitbout were the Concerts Rouge, where for seventy-five centimes they could hear excellent music and get into the bargain something which it was quite possible to drink:  the seats were uncomfortable, the place was crowded, the air thick with caporal horrible to breathe, but in their young enthusiasm they were indifferent.  Sometimes they went to the Bal Bullier.  On these occasions Flanagan accompanied them.  His excitability and his roisterous enthusiasm made them laugh.  He was an excellent dancer, and before they had been ten minutes in the room he was prancing round with some little shop-girl whose acquaintance he had just made.