“Talking of art,” said Gaillard, fingering the stem of his wineglass delicately and turning to Toto, “a rumor reached me to-day through De Brie, the editor of the _Boulevard_—you know De Brie? It was to the effect that our host——” “Yes.” “That our host,” continued Gaillard, turning to the others, “wearied by the incapacity of the two salons to appreciate genius——” “To appreciate genius,” echoed Struve. “Is about to found an art school.” De Nani leaned back in his chair and slipped a button of his waistcoat, as if to give room for the sycophant to ramp. “And who,” said he, “would be fitter to found an art school than our host—ahu!—who, may I ask, M. Veillard?” “Gaillard.” “Maillard—than our illustrious host, ahu! I have seen his works, _ventre St. Gris_! Ahu! I am not a man of yesterday, M. Baillard; my memory carries me back to the time before women wore hoops.” “Indeed,” murmured Struve, who had placed the rose flung at him by Toto with its stalk in his glass of champagne, and was staring at it with the rapt air of a poet. “Indeed yes, monsieur, I was born on the edge of the First Empire. I saw the new Napoleon rise—you, sir, have only seen him vanish.” “I have seen many a napoleon vanish,” mourned Struve; “but go on—your tale charms me. Pelisson, listen.” “Go to the devil!” said Pelisson, who was now writing with the speed of fire and a stylographic pen on a long strip of paper, using the table for a desk. “I have seen the art galleries of Europe,” continued De Nani, now three parts drunk, and unconscious that he was making a fool of himself before the first art critic in Europe, “and I unhesitatingly proclaim M. le Prince’s work to be on a level—allowing of course for youth—on a level with the best I have seen.” “Oh, rot! oh, rubbish!” cried Toto, blushing furiously and flinging flowers at the great bent head of Pelisson, whilst that journalist, wallowing in his journalese, only grunted and growled in a far-away manner and wrote the more quickly. “_I_ can’t paint, _I_ can’t draw—might if I took to it really. Pelisson, you pig! wake up and eat your pudding.” “I have said what I have said,” concluded De Nani, attacking his ice-pudding with all the youthful nonchalance of your man who wears false teeth. “And my rose is drunk,” said Struve, as the rose tumbled out of the glass. “_I_ can’t paint,” murmured Toto again with the air of a spoilt child. “Toto!” demanded Struve, placing the rose languidly in his coat, “how much wine have you drunk?” “Why?” “Because a lot of truth is escaping from you.” Toto laughed; he always believed Struve to be jesting when in earnest, and in earnest when jesting. Then he sat watching De Nani, and wondering at his capacity for champagne. “Cigars, cigars!” cried Pelisson, finishing his article with a dash, flinging down his pen and bursting out like a sun. “What’s this? pudding!” He devoured it like a pig, and then roared again for cigars. Three boxes were swiftly passed in from the outside.