Cartaret had inherited his excellent constitution, but his family all suffered from one disease: the disease of too much money on the wrong side of the house. When oil was found in Ohio, it was found in land belonging to his father's brother, but Charlie's father remained a poor lawyer to the end of his days. Uncle Jack had children of his own and a deserved reputation for holding on to his pennies. He sent his niece to a finishing-school, where she could be properly prepared for that state of life to which it had not pleased Heaven to call her, and he sent his nephew to college. When the former child was finished, he found her a place as companion to an ancient widow in Toledo and dismissed her from his thoughts; when Charlie was through with college--which is to say, when the faculty was through with him for endeavoring to plant a fraternity in a plot of academic soil that forbade the seed of Greek-letter societies--he asked him what he intended to do now--and asked it in a tone that plainly meant: "What further disgrace are you planning to bring upon our name?" Charlie replied that he wanted to be an artist. "I might have guessed it," said his uncle. "How long'll it take?" Young Cartaret, knowing something about art, had not the slightest idea. "Well," said the by-product of petroleum, "if you've got to be an artist, be one as far away from New York as you can. They say Paris is the best place to learn the business." "It is one of the best places," said Charlie. The elder Cartaret wrote a check. "Take a boat to-morrow," he ordered. "I'll pay your board and tuition for two years: that's time enough to learn any business. After two years you'll have to make out for yourself." So Charlie had worked hard for two years. That period ended a week ago, and his uncle's checks ended with it. He had stayed on and hoped. To-day he had carried a picture through the rain to Seraphin's benefactor, the dealer Fourget; and the soft-hearted Fourget had bought it. Cartaret, on his return, met Houdon in the lower hall and before the American was well aware of it, he was pledged to the feast of which Maurice was bragging to Dieudonné. Charlie dug into his pocket and fished out all that was in it: a matter of two hundred and ten francs. He counted it twice over. "No use," he said. "I can't make it any larger. I wonder if I ought to take a smaller room."