"Certainly: but will you have the goodness, monsieur, to inform me where I shall find the general?" The painter turned round. "The general? What general?" "General Verdier." "Why, I am he." "You?" I stared with such rude surprise at him that he began to laugh. "It astonishes you to see me handle the brush so badly," said he, "after having heard, maybe, that I handled a sword passably? What would you have me do? I have an active hand and I must keep it always occupied somehow.... But come, as evidently, after the question you put to me just now, you have nothing to say to the painter, what do you want with the general?" "I am the son of your old comrade-at-arms in Egypt, General Dumas." He turned round quickly towards me, and looked at me earnestly; then, after a moment's silence, he said-- "By the powers, so you are! You are the very image of him." Tears immediately came into his eyes, and, throwing down his brush, he held out his hand to me, which I longed to kiss rather than to shake. "Ah! You remember him, then?" "Remember him! I should think I do: the handsomest and the bravest man in the army! You are the very spit of him, my lad: what a model he would have made any painter!" "Yes, you are right; I remember him perfectly." "And what brings you to Paris, my dear boy? for, if my memory serves me, you lived with your mother, in some village or other." "True, General; but my mother is getting on in years, and we are poor." "We are both in the same boat," he said. "So," I went on, "I have come to Paris, in the hope of obtaining a small situation, now that it is my turn to provide for her as hitherto she has provided for me." "That is well thought of! But, my poor lad, a place is not so easy to get in these times, no matter how small, especially for the son of a Republican general. Ah! if you were the son of an _émigré_ or of a Chouan,--if only your poor father had served in the Russian or Austrian army,--I daresay you might have had a chance." "The deuce, General, you frighten me! And I had been counting on your protection." "What?" he exclaimed. I repeated my sentence word for word, but with a little less assurance. "My protection!" He shook his head and smiled sadly. "My poor boy," he said, "if you wish to take lessons in painting, my protection may be sufficient to provide you with them, and, even so, you will never be a great artist if you do not surpass your master. My protection! Well, well! I am grateful to you for that expression,'pon my word! for you are, most likely, the only person in the world who would ask me for such a thing to-day. You flatterer!" "Excuse me, General, I do not rightly understand." "Why, those rascals pensioned me off for some imaginary conspiracy with Dermoncourt! So, you see, here I am, painting pictures; and if you want to do the same, here are a palette, some brushes and a thirty-six canvas."