A little bundle of papers was disturbing his rest on the sofa. He picked them out. They were newspaper cuttings, paragraphs about an individual called Papillard. For the last few months a series of little stories had been attracting the attention of Paris to the pages of _Gil Blas_. They were naughty, but screamingly funny, and just long enough to read whilst smoking a couple of cigarettes or sipping a glass of absinthe. They were signed “Papillard.” Everyone was asking who Papillard was. Nobody knew but the editor, and editors never speak when they are told not. “Why, hello!” cried Toto. “Do you know Papillard?” “No,” said Gaillard, removing the kettle from the fire in a hurry. “But see here: here are things about him, addressed to him and opened.” “Oh,” said Gaillard, “I know. He’s a friend of Fanfoullard’s. He must have been yesterday, and no doubt left them. My dear Toto, do you like your coffee strong?” Gaillard’s hand was shaking. He dared not admit that Papillard was himself. No one had ever guessed it, for Gaillard, though a source of great humor, was believed to be utterly destitute of that quality, and so, in fact, he was. Papillard was a sprite that lived in the brain of his unwilling host. He was a creature like Fanfoullard and Mirmillard, only much more highly organized, for he was able to cling to his tenement and to exercise his abilities in literature. The stories of Papillard horrified his master when in print. There was something so abominably low about them. Servant girls giggled over them on back-stairs. Gaillard admitted to himself in secret that he wrote them, and enjoyed writing them, but he would sooner almost have died than admitted the authorship. One of the stories in question had for motive a cold leg of mutton. There is nothing particularly funny about a cold leg of mutton, but the story was killing. And it had been written by the author of “Satanitie”! Gaillard, when he remembered this fact, felt dizzy, and pinched himself to see if he was there. He was jealous, too, of Papillard’s fame. Wind of these trifles had even reached England, or, at least, the _Daily Telegraph_. “Satanitie” had never gone so far. When people cried “What a droll fellow this Papillard is!” Gaillard’s tongue had to lie mute at the bottom of his mouth—a cruel torture. You cannot be two people at once. You cannot be a mystical poet, and a buffoon—at least, before the eyes of the world. He had discovered his genius by accident, and too late. His self-love had crystallized round poetry, and, in fact, the poet was the true _him_. Papillard was a clove of garlic in a bonbon box, placed there by accident or freak, smelt by everyone, but never localized.