The annual banquet given by the Alumni and the present students of the Atelier Rousseau, was offered to that distinguished artist, as was usual, just before the opening of the colossal Parisian picture show. It was also, as usual, a very gay affair. The Pere Rousseau himself, affable and stately, appeared punctually on the scene of the festivities and was promptly ensconced in a huge armchair, thoughtfully placed half way down a long vista of coarse, but snowy, tablecloth. Opposite to him, in another similar armchair, sat his best friend—the Master, to whom Randall had so recently gone for advice. He was radiant and happy; a sense of duty well done pervaded his entire personality. The dinner—a truly marvelous production at the price—was eaten with avidity by the younger men, who were not used to such luxury every day, and with a good-natured tolerance by Monsieur Rousseau, the Master, and those few of the guests who had been born with silver spoons in their mouths, or whose feet were, by their own creditable endeavors, firmly planted on the highroad which leads to fame and fortune. Such small formality as existed at the commencement of the feast gradually disappeared and, when the inevitable champagne was finally brought forth, there were not over a hundred individuals with a hundred diverse interests present, but one great human family, presided over by a dearly loved and affectionate father. Then speeches were made, and Lecroix, the most irrepressible, fun-loving man in the school, became bold enough to produce a Punch and Judy booth from a room nearby and proceeded to give an audacious parody on the Atelier and its illustrious chief. Randall not having heard from his picture, and dying to know its fate, managed, under the pretence of seeing the performance better, to work his way up close to the Master’s chair. The Master saw him and smiled: “It is all right,” he whispered, “you are well placed, nearly on the line in the _Salle d’Honneur_. Why, however, did you change your picture so much? The distance was fairly good when you showed it to me at my studio, and you ought only to have worked on the foreground. The changes you have made in the composition were so badly done, and ill-advised, that I had to fight hard, I can tell you, against a pack of over-conscientious fellows, before I could get them to vote for it at all. If it hadn’t been lunch time, and so many of them were hungry and wanted to leave, rather than to dispute over pictures, I don’t think that even _I_ could have managed them satisfactorily.” “But,” interrupted Joe in astonishment, “I didn’t change the composition a bit. I only altered the foreground as you told me to do.”