"Oh, I know all about it!" laughed back Lemois. "Le Blanc was here before breakfast the next morning with the _Figaro_. It was your African--am I not right, Monsieur Herbert?--the big black man with the dagger--the one I saw in the clay? Fine!--no dryads, no satyrs nor demons--just the ego of the savage. And why should you not have won the medal?" he added in serious tones that commanded instant attention. "Who among our sculptors--men who make the clay obey them--know the savage as you do? And to think, too, of your being here after your triumph, under the roof of my Marmouset. Do you know that its patron saint is another African explorer--the first man who ever set foot on its western shores--none other than the great Bethencourt himself? He was either from Picardy or Normandy--the record is not clear--and on one of his voyages--this, remember, was in the fifteenth century, the same period in which the stone chimney over your heads was built--he captured and brought home with him some little black dwarfs who became very fashionable. You see them often later on in the prints and paintings of the time, following behind the balloon petticoats and high headdresses of the great ladies. After a time they became a regular article of trade, these marmots, and there is still a street in Paris called 'The Marmouset.' So popular were they that Charles VI is said to have had a ministry composed of five of these little rascals. So, when you first showed me your clay sketch of your African, I said--'Ah! here is the spirit of Bethencourt! This Monsieur Herbert is Norman, not English; he has brought the savage of old to light, the same savage that Bethencourt saw--the savage that lived and fought and died before our cultivated moderns vulgarized him.' That was a glorious thing to do, messieurs, if you will think about it"--and he looked around the circle, his eyes sparkling, his small body alive with enthusiasm. Herbert extended his palms in protest, muttering something about parts of the statue not satisfying him and its being pretty bad in spots, if Lemois did but know it, thanking him at the same time for comparing him to so great a man as Bethencourt; but his undaunted admirer kept on without a pause, his voice quivering with pride: "The primitive man demanding of civilization his right to live! Ah! that is a new motive in art, my friends!" "Hear him go on!" cried Louis, settling himself again on the arm of Herbert's chair; "talks like a critic. Gentlemen, the distinguished Monsieur Lemois will now address you on----" Lemois turned and bowed profoundly. "Better than a critic, Monsieur Louis. They only see the outside of things. Pray don't rob Monsieur Herbert of his just rights or try to lean on him; take a whole chair to yourself and keep still a moment. You are like your running water--you----" "Not a bit like it," broke in Herbert, glad to turn the talk away from himself. "His water sometimes reflects--he never does."