Opposite the Palais de Glace was a perfect sea of vehicles, artists, porters, and policemen, all inextricably tangled up, all shouting or groaning, and wet pictures suffering. One artist nearly had a fit when he saw a full moon wiped off his beautiful landscape, and he would have killed the guilty porter had not the students interfered. Portraits of handsome ladies with smudged noses and smeared eyes were common. Expensive gold frames lost large sections of their corners. But still they were pouring in. With infinite patience and skill Bishop gradually worked his _voiture-à- bras_ through the maze, and soon his masterpiece was in the crushing mass at the wide entrance to the Salon. There it was seized and rushed along, and Bishop received in return a slip of paper bearing a number. While within the building we reconnoitred. Amid the confusion of howling inspectors, straining porters bearing heavy pictures, carpenters erecting partitions, and a dust-laden atmosphere, numerous artists were working with furious haste upon their unfinished productions. Some were perched upon ladders, others squatted upon the floor, and one had his model posing nude to the waist; she was indifferent to the attention that she received. Thoughtful mistresses stood affectionately beside their artist amants, furnishing them with delicate edibles and lighting cigarettes for them. Some of the pictures were so large that they were brought in rolled up. One artist had made himself into a carpenter to mount his mammoth picture. Frightful and impossible paintings were numerous, but the painter of each expected a _première médaille d'honneur_. It was nearing six o'clock, the closing hour. Chic demoiselle artistes came dashing up in cabs, bringing with them, to insure safe delivery, their everlasting still-life subjects. Shortly before six the work in the building was suspended by a commotion outside. It was a contingent of students from the Beaux-Arts marching up the Champs-Elysées, yelling and dancing like maniacs and shaking their heavy sticks, the irresistible Sarah Brown leading as drum-maior. She was gorgeously arrayed in the most costly silks and laces, and looked a dashing Amazon. Then, as always, she was perfectly happy with her beloved _étudiants_, who worshipped her as a goddess. She halted them in front of the building, where they formed a circle round her, and there, as director of ceremonies, she required them to sing chansons, dance, make comic speeches, and "blaguer" the arriving artists. The last van was unloaded; the great doors closed with a bang, and the stirring day was ended. All the students, even the porters, then joined hands and went singing, howling, and skipping down the Champs-Elysées, and wishing one another success at the coming exhibition. At the Place de la Concorde we met a wild-eyed artist running frantically toward the Salon with his belated picture. The howls of encouragement that greeted him lent swifter wings to his legs.