Louis twisted his body and caught the sculptor by the lapel of his coat. "None of your cheap wit, Herbert! Marc, the lunatic, would have said that and thought it funny--you can't afford to. Move up, I tell you, you bloated mud-dauber, and give me more room; you'd spread yourself over two chairs with four heads on their corners if you could fill them." Whereupon there followed one of those good-natured rough-and-tumble dog-plays which the two had kept up through their whole friendship. Indeed, a wrestling match started it. Herbert, then known to the world as an explorer and writer, was studying at Julien's at the time. Louis, who was also a pupil, was off in Holland painting. Their fellow students, noting Herbert's compact physique, had bided the hour until the two men should meet, and it was when the room looked as if a cyclone had struck it--with Herbert on top one moment and Louis the next--that the friendship began. The big-hearted Louis, too, was the first to recognize his comrade's genius as a sculptor. Herbert had a wad of clay sent home from which he modelled an elephant. This was finally tossed into a corner. There it lay a shapeless mass until his conscience smote him and the whole was transformed into a Congo boy. Louis insisted it should be sent to the Salon, and thus the explorer, writer, and painter became the sculptor. And so the friendship grew and strengthened with the years. Since then both men had won their gold medals at the Salon--Louis two and Herbert two. The same old dog-play was now going on before the cheery fire, Louis scrouging and pushing, Herbert extending his muscles and standing pat--either of them could have held the other clear of the floor at arm's length--Herbert, all his sinews in place, ready for any move of his antagonist; Louis, a Hercules in build, breathing health and strength at every pore. Suddenly the tussle in the chair ceased and the young painter, wrenching himself loose, sprang to his feet. "By thunder!" he cried, "I forgot all about it! Have you heard the news? Hats off and dead silence while I tell it! Lemois, stop that confounded racket with your dishes and listen! Let me present you to His Royal Highness, Monsieur Herbert, the Gold Medallist--his second!" and he made a low salaam to the sculptor stretched out in the Florentine. He was never so happy as when extolling Herbert's achievements.