" The Henchman." It was in this insidious form that
servitude approached me.
Pinkerton and I read and re-read the famous news:
he, I can swear, with an enjoyment as unalloyed and far
more vocal than my own. The statue was nearly done :
a few days' work sufficed to prepare it for exhibition;
the master was approached ; he gave his consent ; and
one cloudless morning of May beheld us gathered >" my
studio for the hour of trial. The master wore his in.*is/-
hued rosette; he came attended by two of my French,
fellow-pupils friends of mine and both considerable
sculptors in Paris at this hour. "Corporal John" (as
we used to call him) breaking for once those habits of
study and reserve which have since carried him so high
in the opinion of the world, had left his easel of a morn,
ing to countenance a fellow-countryman in some sus-
pense. My dear old Eomney was there by particular
request ; for who that knew him would think a pleasure
quite complete unless he shared it, or not support a
mortification more easily if he were present to console ?
The party was completed by , John Myner, the English-
man; by the brothers Stennis, Stennis-cwi<? and Stenni?
fr&re, as they used to figure on their accounts at Barbiz^a
I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE. 71
a pair of hare-brained Scots; and by the inevitable
Jim, as white as a sheet and bedewed with the sweat of
anxiety.
I suppose I was little better myself when I unveiled
the Genius of Muskegon. The master walked about it
seriously ; then he smiled.
" It is already not so bad," said he, in that funny Eng-
lish of which he was so proud. "No, already not
so bad."
We all drew a deep breath of relief; and Corporal
John (as the most considerable junior present) explained
to him it was intended for a public building, a kind of
prefecture
"H6! Quoi?" cried he, relapsing into French. " Qu'-
est-ce que vous me chantez la 9 0, in America," he added,
on f urther information being hastily furnished. " That
is anozer sing. ve"ry good, ve"ry good."
The idea of the required certificate had to be intro-
duced to his mind in the light of a pleasantry the
fancy of a nabob little more advanced than the red
Indians of " Fe"nnimore Cooperr " ; and it took all our
talents combined to conceive a form of words that would
be acceptable on both sides. One was found, however :
Corporal John engrossed it in his undecipherable hand,
the master lent it the sanction of his name and flourish,
I slipped it into an envelope along with one of the two
letters I had ready prepared in my pocket, and as the
rest of us moved off along the boulevard to breakfast,
72 THE WRECKER.
Pinkerton was detached in a cab and duly committed it
to the post.
The breakfast was ordered at Lavenue's, where no
one need be ashamed to entertain even the master ; the
table was laid in the garden ; I had chosen the bill of
fare myself ; on the wine question, we held a council of
war with the most fortunate results ; and the talk, as
soon as the master laid aside his painful English, became
fast and furious. There were a few interruptions, in-
deed, in the way of toasts. The master's health had to
be drunk, and he responded in a little well-turned speech,
full of neat allusions to my future and to the United
States ; my health followed ; and then my father's must
not only be proposed and drunk, but a full report must
be despatched to him at once by cablegram an extrava-
gance which was almost the means of the master's dis-
solution. Choosing Corporal John to be his confidant
(on the ground, I presume, that he was already too good
an artist to be any longer an American except in name)
he summed up his amazement in one oft-repeated for-
mula "Cfestbarbaref" Apart from these genial for-
malities, we talked, talked of art, and talked of it as
only artists can. Here in the South Seas we talk schoon-
ers most of the time ; in the Quarter we talked art with
the like unflagging interest, and perhaps as much result.
Before very long, the master went away; Corporal
John (who was already a sort of young master) fol-
lowed on his heels; and the rank and file were natu-
I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OP FORTUNE. 78
rally relieved by their departure. We were now among
equals; the bottle passed, the conversation sped. I
think I can still hear the Stennis brothers pour forth
their copious tirades; Dijon, my portly French fellow-
student, drop witticisms well-conditioned like himself j
and another (who was weak in foreign languages) dash
hotly into the current of talk with some " Je trove que
pore oon sontimong de delicacy, Corot . . .," or some "Pour
moi Corot est le plou . . .;" and then, his little raft of
French foundering at once, scramble silently to shore
again. He at least could understand ; but to Pinkerton,
I think the noise, the wine, the sun, the shadows of the
leaves, and the esoteric glory of being seated at a foreign
festival, made up the whole available means of entertain*
ment.
Tfe sat down about half past eleven; I suppose it
was two when, some point arising and some particular
picture being instanced, an adjournment to the Louvre
was proposed. I paid the score, and in a moment we
were trooping down the Rue de Renne. It was smoking
hot ; Paris glittered with that superficial brilliancy which
is so agreeable to the man in high spirits, and in moods
of dejection so depressing; the wine sang in my ears,
it danced and brightened in my eyes. The pictures that
we saw that afternoon, as we sped briskly and loqua-
ciously through the immortal galleries, appear to me,
Upon a retrospect, the loveliest of all ; the comments we
exchanged to have touched the highest mark of criti-
cism, grave or
74 THE WKECKER.
It was only when we issued again from the museum
that a difference of race broke up the party. Dijon pro-
posed an adjournment to a cafe 1 , there to finish the after-
noon on beer ; the elder Stennis, revolted at the thought,
moved for the country, a forest if possible, and a long
walk. At once the English speakers rallied to the name
of any exercise : even to me, who have been often twitted
with my sedentary habits, the thought of country air
and stillness proved invincibly attractive. It appeared,
upon investigation, we had just time to hail a cab and
catch one of the fast trains for Fontainebleau. Beyond
the clothes we stood in, all were destitute of what is
called (with dainty vagueness) personal effects; and it
was earnestly mooted, on the other side, whether we had
not time to call upon the way and pack a satchel ? But
the Stennis boys exclaimed upon our effeminacy. They
had come from London, it appeared, a week before with
nothing but greatcoats and tooth-brushes. No baggage
there was the secret of existence. It was expensive, to
be sure ; for every time you had to comb your hair, a
barber must be paid, and every time you changed your
linen, one shirt must be bought and another thrown
away ; but anything was better (argued these young gen-
tlemen) than to be the slaves of haversacks. "A fellow
has to get rid gradually of all material attachments;
that was manhood " (said they) ; " and as long as you
were bound down to anything, house, umbrella, or port-
manteau, you were still tethered by the umbilical cord."
I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE. 75
Something engaging in this theory carried the most of
us away. The two Frenchmen, indeed, retired, scoffing,
to their bock ; and E-omney, being too poor to join the
excursion on his own resources and too proud to borrow,
melted unobtrusively away. Meanwhile the i-emainder
of the company crowded the benches of a cab ; the horse
was urged (as horses have to be) by an appeal to the
pocket of the driver ; the train caught by the inside of a
minute; and in less than an hour and a half we were
breathing deep of the sweet air of the forest and stretch-
ing our legs up the hill from Fontainebleau octroi, bound
for Barbizon. That the leading members of our party
covered the distance in fifty-one minutes and a half is
(I believe) one of the historic landmarks of the colony ;
but you will scarce be surprised to learn that I was some-
what in the rear. Myner, a comparatively philosophic
Briton, kept me company in my deliberate advance ; the
glory of the sun's going down, the fall of the long
shadows, the inimitable scent and the inspiration of the
woods, attuned me more and more to walk in a silence
which progressively infected my companion ; and I re-
member that, when at last he spoke, I was startled from
a deep abstraction.
"Your father seems to be a pretty good kind of a
father," said he. " Why don't he come to see you ? " I
was ready with some dozen of reasons, and had more
in stock ; but Myner, with that shrewdness which made
him feared and admired, suddenly fixed me with his eye-
glass, and asked, " Ever press him ? "
76 THE WRECKER.
The blood came in my face. No ; I had never pressed
him ; I had never even encouraged him to come. I was
proud of him ; proud of his handsome looks, of his kind,
gentle ways, of that bright face he could show when
others were happy; proud, too (meanly proud, if you
like) of his great wealth and startling liberalities. And
yet he would have been in the way of my Paris life, of much
of which he would have disapproved. I had feared to ex-
pose to criticism his innocent remarks on art ; I had told
myself, I had even partly believed, he did not want to
come; I had been (and still am) convinced that he was
sure to be unhappy out of Muskegon ; in short, I had a
thousand reasons, good and bad, not all of which could
alter one iota of the fact that I knew he only waited for
my invitation.
"Thank you, Myner," said I; "you're a much better
fellow than ever I supposed. I'll write to-night."
"0, you're a pretty decent sort yourself," returned
Myner, with more than his usual flippancy of manner,
but (as I was gratefully aware) not a trace of his occa-
sional irony of meaning.
Well, these were brave days, on which I could dwell
forever. Brave, too, were those that followed, when
Pinkerton and I walked Paris and the suburbs, viewing
and pricing houses for my new establishment, or covered
ourselves with dust and returned laden with Chinese
gods and brass warming-pans from the dealers in antiqui-
ties. I found Pinkerton well up in the situation of these
I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE. 77
establishments as well as in the current prices, and with
quite a smattering of critical judgment ; it turned out he
was investing capital in pictures and curiosities for the
States, and the superficial thoroughness of the creature
appeared in the fact, that although he would never be a
connoisseur, he was already something of an expert
The things themselves left him as near as may be cold ;
but he had a joy of his own in understanding how to
buy and sell them.
In such engagements the time passed until I might
very well expect an answer from my father. Two mails
followed each other, and brought nothing. By the third
I received a long and almost incoherent letter of re-
morse, encouragement, consolation, and despair. From
this pitiful document, which (with a movement of piety)
I burned as soon as I had read it, I gathered that the
bubble of my father's wealth was burst, that he was now
both penniless and sick; and that I, so far from expect-
ing ten thousand dollars to throw away in juvenile
extravagance, must look no longer for the quarterly
remittances on which I lived. My case was hard
enough ; but I had sense enough to perceive, and de-
cency enough to do my duty. I sold my curiosities, or
rather I sent Pinkerton to sell them ; and he had pre-
viously bought and now disposed of them so wisely that
the loss was trifling. This, with what remained of my
last allowance, left me at the head of no less than five
thousand francs. Five hundred I reserved for my own
78 THE WRECKER.
immediate necessities; the rest I mailed inside of the
week to my father at Muskegon, where they came in
time to pay his funeral expenses. .
The news of his death was scarcely a surprise and
scarce a grief to me. I could not conceive my father a
poor man. He had led too long a life of thoughtless and
generous profusion to endure the change ; and though I
grieved for myself, I was able to rejoice that my father
had been taken from the battle. I grieved, I say, for
myself ; and it is probable there were at the same date
many thousands of persons grieving with less cause. I
had lost my father ; I had lost the allowance ; my whole
fortune (including what had been returned from Muske-
gon) scarce amounted to a thousand francs ; and to
crown my sorrows, the statuary contract had changed
aands. The new contractor had a son of his own, or else
t nephew; and it was signified to me, with business-like
plainness, that I must find another market for my pigs.
In the meanwhile I had given up my room, and slept on
a truckle-bed in a corner of the studio, where as I read
myself to sleep at night, and when I awoke in the morn-
ing, that now useless bulk, the Genius of Muskegon, was
ever present to my eyes. Poor stone lady ! born to be
enthroned under the gilded, echoing dome of the new
capitol, whither was she now to drift ? for what base
purposes be ultimately broken up, like an unseaworthy
ship ? and what should befall her ill-starred artificer,
standing, with his thousand francs, on the threshold of
a life so hard as that of the unbefriended sculptor ?
I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE. 79
It was a subject often and earnestly debated by myself
and Pinkerton. In his opinion, I should instantly dis-
card my profession. " Just drop it, here and now," he
would say. " Come back home with me, and let's throw
our whole soul into business. I have the capital; you
bring the culture. Dodd & Pinkerton I never saw a
better name for an advertisement ; and you can't think,
London, how much depends upon a name." On my
side, I would admit that a sculptor should possess one
of three things capital, influence, or an energy only
to be qualified as hellish. The two first I had now
lost ; to the third I never had the smallest claim ; and
yet I wanted the cowardice (or perhaps it was the
courage) to turn my back on my career without a fight.
I told him, besides, that however poor my chances were
in sculpture, I was convinced they were yet worse in
business, for which I equally lacked taste and aptitude.
But upon this head, he was my father over again ; as-
sured me that I spoke in ignorance ; that any intelligent
and cultured person was Bound to succeed ; that I must,
besides, have inherited some of my father's fitness ; and,
at any rate, that I had been regularly trained for that
career in the commercial college.
"Pinkerton," I said, "can't you understand that, as
long as I was there, I never took the smallest interest
in any stricken thing? The whole affair was poison
to me."
" It's not possible," he would cry j " it can't be ; you
80 THE WKECKER.
couldn't live in the midst of it and not feel the charm ;
with all your poetry of soul, you couldn't help ! Lou-
don," he would go on, " you drive me crazy. You expect
a man to be all broken up about the sunset, and not to
care a dime for a place where fortunes are fought for
and made and lost all day ; or for a career that consists
in studying up life till you have it at your finger-ends,
spying out every cranny where you can get your hand
in and a dollar out, and standing there in the midst
one foot on bankruptcy, the other on a borrowed dollar,
and the whole thing spinning round you like a mill
raking in the stamps, in spite of fate and fortune."
To this romance of dickering I would reply with the
romance (which is also the virtue) of art : reminding
him of those examples of constancy through many
tribulations, with which the role of Apollo is illustrated ;
from the case of Millet, to those of many of our friends
and comrades, who had chosen this agreeable mountain
path through life, and were now bravely clambering
among rocks and brambles, penniless and hopeful.
"You will never understand it, Pinkerton," I would
say. " You look to the result, you want to see some
profit of your endeavours : that is why you could never
learn to paint, if you lived to be Methusalem. The
result is always a fizzle : the eyes of the artist are turned
in; he lives for a frame of mind. Look at Eomney,
now. There is the nature of the artist. He hasn't a
cent; and if you offered him to-morrow the .command
I EXPEDIENCE EXTREMES OF FOETUNE. 81
of an army, or the presidentship of the United States,
be wouldn't take it, and you know he wouldn't."
" I suppose not," Pinkerton would cry, scouring his
hair with both his hands; "and I can't see why; I
can't see what in fits he would be after, not to ; I don't
seem to rise to these views. Of course, it's the fault of
not having had advantages in early life; but, London,
I'm so miserably low, that it seems to me silly. The
fact is," he might add with a smile, "I don't seem to
have the least use for a frame of mind without square
meals ; and you can't get it out of my head that it's a
man's duty to die rich, if he can."
" What for ? " I asked him once.
"CX I don't know," he replied. "Why in snakes
should anybody want to be a sculptor, if you come to
that ? I would love to sculp myself. But what I can't
see is why you should want to do nothing else. It
seems to argue a poverty of nature."
Whether or not he ever came to understand me
and I have been so tossed about since then that I
am not very sure I understand myself he soon per-
ceived that I was perfectly in earnest ; and after about
ten days of argument, suddenly dropped the subject,
and announced that he was wasting capital, and must
go home at once. No doubt he should have gone long
before, and had already lingered over his intended time
for the sake of our companionship and my misfortune ;
$2 THE WRECKER.
but man is so unjustly minded that the very fact, which
ought to have disarmed, only embittered my vexation.
I resented his departure in the light of a desertion; I
would not say, but doubtless I betrayed it j and something
hang-dog in the man's face and bearing led me to believe
he was himself remorseful. It is certain at least that,
during the time of his preparations, we drew sensibly
apart a circumstance that I recall with shame. On
the last day, he had me to dinner at a restaurant which
he knew I had formerly frequented, and had only for-
sworn of late from considerations of economy. He
seemed ill at ease ; I was myself both sorry and sulky ;
and the meal passed with little conversation.
"Now, London," said he, with a visible effort, after
the coffee was come and our pipes lighted, "you can
never understand the gratitude and loyalty I bear you.
You don't know what a boon it is to be taken up by a
man that stands on the pinnacle of civilization; you
can't think how it's refined and purified me, how it's
appealed to my spiritual nature ; and I want to tell you
that I would die at your door like a dog."
I don't know what answer I tried to make, but he
cut me short.
"Let me say it out!" he cried. "I revere you for
your whole-souled devotion to art ; I can't rise to it, but
there's a strain of poetry in my nature, London, that
responds to it. I want you to carry it out, and I mean
to help you."
I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE. 83
" Pinkerton, what nonsense is this ? " I interrupted.
" Now don't get mad, Loudon ; this is a plain piece of
business," said he ; " it's done every day ; it's even typical.
How are all those fellows over here in Paris, Henderson,
Sunnier, Long ? it's all the same story : a young man
just plum full of artistic genius on the one side, a man
of business on the other who doesn't know what to do
with his dollars "
" But, you fool, you're as poor as a rat," I cried.
" You wait till I get my irons in the fire ! " returned
Pinkerton. " I'm oound to be rich ; and I tell you I mean
to have some of the fun as I go along. Here's your first
allowance ; take it at the hand of a friend ; I'm one that
holds friendship sacred as you do yourself. It's only a
hundred francs; you'll get the same every month, and
as soon as my business begins to expand we'll increase
it to something fitting. And so far from it's being a
favour, just let me handle your statuary for the Ameri-
can market, and I'll call it one of the smartest strokes of
business in my life."
It took me a long time, and it had cost us both much
grateful and painful emotion, before I had finally man-
aged to refuse his offer and compounded for a bottle of
particular wine. He dropped the subject at last sud-
denly with a "Never mind; that's all done with," nor
did he again refer to the subject, though we passed
together the rest of the afternoon, and I accompanied
84 THE WRECKER.
him, on his departure, to the doors of the waiting-room
at St. Lazare. I felt myself strangely alone; a voice
told me that I had rejected both the counsels of wisdom
and the helping hand of friendship; and as I passed
through the great bright city on my homeward way,
I measured it for the first time with the eye of an
adversary.
CHAPTER V.
IN WHICH I AM DOWN ON MY LUCK IN PARIS.
In no part of the world is starvation an agreeable
business ; but I believe it is admitted there is no worse
place to starve in than this city of Paris. The appear-
ances of life are there so especially gay, it is so much
a magnified beer-garden, the houses are so ornate, the
theatres so numerous, the very pace of the vehicles is so
brisk, that a man in any deep concern of mind or pain of
body is constantly driven in upon himself. In his own
eyes, he seems the one serious creature moving in a world
of horrible unreality ; voluble people issuing from a cafe 1 ,
the queue at theatre doors, Sunday cabfuls of second-rate
pleasure-seekers, the bedizened ladies of the pavement,
I AM DOWN ON MY LUCK IN PARIS. 85
the show in the jewellers' windows all the familiar
sights contributing to flout his own unhappinesn, want,
and isolation. At the same time, if he be at all after
my pattern, he is perhaps supported by a childish satis-
faction : this is life at last, he may tell himself, this is
the real thing ; the bladders on which I was set swim-
ming are now empty, my own weight depends upon the
ocean ; by my own exertions I must perish or succeed ;
and I am now enduring in the vivid fact, what I so much
delighted to read of in the case of Lonsteau or Lucien,
Rodolphe or Schaunard.
Of the steps of my misery, I cannot tell at length.
In ordinary times what were politically called " loans "
(although they were never meant to be repaid) were
matters of constant course among the students, and
many a man has partly lived on them for years. But
my misfortune befell me at an awkward juncture. Many
of my friends were gone ; others were themselves in a
precarious situation. Komney (for instance) was re-
duced to tramping Paris in a pair of country sabots, his
only suit of clothes so imperfect (in spite of cunningly
adjusted pins) that the authorities at the Luxembourg
suggested his withdrawal from the gallery. Dijon, too,
was on a leeshore, designing clocks and gas-brackets for
a dealer; and the most he could do was to offer me a
corner of his studio where I might work. My own
studio (it will be gathered) I had by that time lost ; and
in the course of my expulsion the Genius of Muskegon
86 THE WKECKER.
was finally separated from her author. To continue to po*
sess a full-sized statue, a man must have a studio, a gal-
lery, or at least the freedom of a back garden. He can-
not carry it about with him, like a satchel, in the bottom
of a cab, nor can he cohabit in a garret, ten by fifteen,
with so momentous a companion. It was my first idea
to leave her behind at my departure. There, in her
birthplace, she might lend an inspiration, methought, to
my successor. But the proprietor, with whom I had
unhappily quarrelled, seized the occasion to be disagree-
able, and called upon me to remove my property. For a
man in such straits as I now found myself, the hire of
a lorry was a consideration; and yet even that I could
have faced, if I had had anywhere to drive to after it
was hired. Hysterical laughter seized upon me, as I
beheld (in imagination) myself, the waggoner, and the
Genius of Muskegon, standing in the public view of
Paris, without the shadow of a destinatioa; perhaps
driving at last to the nearest rubbish heap, and dumping
there, among the ordures of a city, the beloved child of
rny invention. From these extremities I was relieved