sion at once. Times were so hard with me at the beginning. I came up to Paris with a yearly allowance from my native town of a thousand francs, and for six years I lived on it contentedly, or nearly so."
"But you couldn't have done it!" I exclaimed.
"Oh! yes; it was entirely possible," he replied, with evident pride. "A few chums and I went to housekeeping together. One of our number had a little friend who had been a cook,—pardon me, but it is the truth,—and she used to get us up two meals a day for forty-five francs a month. Room rent was fifteen francs. We had no servants; I used to make my own bed. There you have it; sixty francs procured me the necessaries of life. I was togged out like a chimney-sweep, and I never thought of such a thing as taking the omnibus. My comrades lived in the same way, and we were not so very badly off, after all. There was Tardif the sculptor, Sudre the animal painter, Rivals the engraver, and then the one who was more fortunate in his belongings than any of us, the 'Cantinier' of our 'Cantinière,' as we used to call them, Ladrat."
"Ladrat? Ladrat?" said I, rummaging my memory, "I know that name."
"You have seen it in the newspapers," rejoined the painter, upon whose countenance appeared a pained look;" but I am coming to him. This Ladrat, who carried off all the prizes at the Art School, was even in those days the victim of the most horrible of vices: he drank. What would you have? In the life that we led, almost that of laborers, where there was too little restraint, mingling constantly as we did with models and workingmen, we were exposed to many
