op girls;
she did a little translating; she would pose now and then for a
painter friend--she was the original, for instance, of Norton's 'Woman
Dancing,' which you know. She even--thanks to the employment by Chalks
of what he called his 'in_floo_ence'--she even contributed a weekly
column of Paris gossip to the _Palladium_, a newspaper published at
Battle Creek, Michigan, U.S.A., Chalks's native town. 'Put in lots
about me, and talk as if there were only two important centres of
civilisation on earth, Battle Crick and Parus, and it'll be a boom,'
Chalks said. We used to have great fun, concocting those columns of
Paris gossip. Nina, indeed, held the pen and cast a deciding vote; but
we all collaborated. And we put in lots about Chalks--perhaps rather
more than he had bargained for. With an irony (we trusted) too subtle
to be suspected by the good people of Battle Creek, we would introduce
their illustrious fellow-citizen, casually, between the Pope and the
President of the Republic; we would sketch him as he strolled in the
Boulevard arm-in-arm with Monsieur Meissonier, as he dined with the
Perpetual Secretary of the French Academy, or drank his bock in the
afternoon with the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour; we would
compose solemn descriptive criticisms of his works, which almost made
us die of laughing; we would interview him--at length--about any
subject; we would give elaborate bulletins of his health, and
brilliant pen-pictures of his toilets. Sometimes we would betroth him,
marry him, divorce him; sometimes, when our muse impelled us to a
particularly daring flight, we would insinuate, darkly, sorrowfully,
that perhaps the great man's morals ... but no! We were persuaded that
rumour accused him falsely. The story that he had been seen dancing at
Bullier's with the notorious Duchesse de Z---- was a baseless
fabrication. Unprincipled? Oh, we were nothing if not unprincipled.
And our pleasure was so exquisite, and it worried our victim so. 'I
suppose you think it's funny, don't you?' he used to ask, with a feint
of superior scorn which put its fine flower to our hilarity. 'Look
out, or you'll bust,' he would warn us, the only unconvulsed member
present. 'By gum, you're easily amused.' We always wrote of him
respectfully as Mr. Charles K. Smith; we never faintly hinted at his
sobriquet. We would have rewarded liberally, at that time, any one who
could have told us what the K. stood for. We yearned to unite th