M. Nioche, who had dismissed his
own attendant, hovered near, smiling and rubbing his hands.

"It has wonderful finesse," he murmured, caressingly. "And here and
there are marvelous touches, you probably perceive them, sir. It
attracted great attention on the Boulevard, as we came along. And then a
gradation of tones! That's what it is to know how to paint. I don't
say it because I am her father, sir; but as one man of taste addressing
another I cannot help observing that you have there an exquisite work.
It is hard to produce such things and to have to part with them. If our
means only allowed us the luxury of keeping it! I really may say, sir--"
and M. Nioche gave a little feebly insinuating laugh--"I really may
say that I envy you! You see," he added in a moment, "we have taken the
liberty of offering you a frame. It increases by a trifle the value of
the work, and it will save you the annoyance--so great for a person of
your delicacy--of going about to bargain at the shops."

The language spoken by M. Nioche was a singular compound, which I shrink
from the attempt to reproduce in its integrity. He had apparently once
possessed a certain knowledge of English, and his accent was oddly
tinged with the cockneyism of the British metropolis. But his learning
had grown rusty with disuse, and his vocabulary was defective and
capricious. He had repaired it with large patches of French, with words
anglicized by a process of his own, and with native idioms literally
translated. The result, in the form in which he in all humility
presented it, would be scarcely comprehensible to the reader, so that I
have ventured to trim and sift it. Newman only half understood it, but
it amused him, and the old man's decent forlornness appealed to his
democratic instincts. The assumption of a fatality in misery always
irritated his strong good nature--it was almost the only thing that did
so; and he felt the impulse to wipe it out, as it were, with the sponge
of his own prosperity. The papa of Mademoiselle Noemie, however, had
apparently on this occasion been vigorously indoctrinated, and he showed
a certain tremulous eagerness to cultivate unexpected opportunities.

"How much do I owe you, then, with the frame?" asked Newman.

"It will make in all three thousand francs," said the old man, smiling
agreeably, but folding his hands in instinctive suppliance.

"Can you give me a receipt?"

"I have brought one," said M. Nioche. "I took the l