en Bok handed
Dumas the money.

"After I count it," said Dumas.

This was the last straw!

"Pray ask him," Bok suggested to the interpreter, "what assurance I have
that he will deliver the manuscript to me after he has the money." The
friend protested against translating this thrust, but Bok insisted, and
Dumas, not knowing what was coming, insisted that the message be given
him. When it was, the man was a study; he became livid with rage.

"But," persisted Bok, "say to Monsieur Dumas that I have the same
privilege of distrusting him as he apparently has of distrusting me."

And Bok can still see the violent gesticulations of the storming French
author, his face burning with passionate anger, as the two left him.

Edward Bok now sincerely hoped that his encounters with the absence of a
law that has been met were at an end!

Rosa Bonheur, the painter of "The Horse Fair," had been represented to
Bok as another recluse who was as inaccessible as Kate Greenaway. He had
known of the painter's intimate relations with the ex-Empress Eugenie,
and desired to get these reminiscences. Everybody dissuaded him; but
again taking a French friend he made the journey to Fontainebleau, where
the artist lived in a chateau in the little village of By.

A group of dogs, great, magnificent tawny creatures, welcomed the two
visitors to the chateau; and the most powerful door that Bok had ever
seen, as securely bolted as that of a cell, told of the inaccessibility
of the mistress of the house. Two blue-frocked peasants explained how
impossible it was for any one to see their mistress, so Bok asked
permission to come in and write her a note.

This was granted; and then, as in the case of Kate Greenaway, Rosa
Bonheur herself walked into the hall, in a velvet jacket, dressed, as
she always was, in man's attire. A delightful smile lighted the strong
face, surmounted by a shock of gray hair, cut short at the back; and
from the moment of her first welcome there was no doubt of her
cordiality to the few who were fortunate enough to work their way into
her presence. It was a wonderful afternoon, spent in the painter's
studio in the upper part of the chateau; and Bok carried away with him
the promise of Rosa Bonheur to write the story of her life for
publication in the magazine.

On his return to London the editor found that Charles Dana Gibson had
settled down there for a time. Bok had always wanted Gibson to depict
the characters of Dicke