“What! that American girl—would you give her a second thought? _Mon Dieu!_ this is very funny. Oh, _mon Dieu!_ this will kill me. An American pork butcheress; you told me yourself she was a pork butcheress. You are afraid of the jeers of this tripe-seller’s daughter. I passed to-day three American women in green veils; they were promenading the Rue St. Honoré, and screaming through their noses; they had alpenstocks, or at least little sticks, adorned with horn handles and branded ‘Rigi Kulm,’ ‘Rigi Scheideck.’ They had ascended the Rigi, and were announcing the fact to the Rue St. Honoré; that is your American woman. They had faces like dollars, and for people like these you would inconvenience yourself.” “I tell you I don’t want to go back. I am perfectly happy, perfectly contented. Don’t talk any more about it. And I wish you would not call me Toto.” Gaillard turned the conversation to his own immediate wants, and the process of extraction was resumed till he had salved five hundred francs from this derelict, promising upon his honor to pay it back in three weeks. And scarcely had the money changed hands than Célestin entered, her arms full of parcels, and accompanied by Garnier. He had met her shopping, and accompanied her home, it being Saturday. Then the poet took his departure, chuckling to himself about Garnier and the obvious worship of the big Provençal for the pretty Célestin; but for all that, he felt desperately uneasy about Toto. This foolishness might linger on for months like typhoid, and the best part of the year was coming on. At Christmas Toto had talked of hiring a steam yacht for the summer, and now this wretched Célestin and this vile art craze had spoiled it all. He could have wept as he walked hurriedly down the Rue de Perpignan looking for a cab to bear him to civilization, and after an absinthe, which acted on his trouble as stimulants on an abscess, heightening the inflammation and bringing it to a head, he sought Struve out in his rooms. Struve was working in his shirt-sleeves at that book of his which made such a sensation a year later, “The Saint in Art.” “I am very uneasy about Toto.” “What’s wrong with him? Has he been butted by a moufflon?” “Toto is not in Corsica; Toto is in Paris.” “Oh, he’s come back, is he?” “Do attend to me, Struve. Toto is in an attic.” “What is he doing in an attic?” “He is painting pictures.” “Has he gone mad?” “No, he is not mad; but I fear he will make a very great fool of himself.” “I always said he would do that,” granted Struve, examining attentively a tiny colored picture of St. Cecilia that was destined to adorn “The Saint in Art.” “I fear, if he is not stopped, he will make a very great mess of himself. He has taken only three thousand francs of his patrimony, and he swears that if he does not succeed on it he will cut his throat.”