in the
evening. And then they only left me because it was time for dinner. Can
you imagine that wedding-day passed at a photographer's?"

While Andre was recounting to him with this good humour the troubles of
his life, Paul recalled the tirade of Felicia that day when Bohemians
had been mentioned, and all that she had said to Jenkins of their lofty
courage, avid of privations and trials. He thought also of Aline's
passion for her beloved Paris, of which he himself was only acquainted,
for his part, with the unwholesome eccentricities, while the great city
hid in its recesses so many unknown heroisms and noble illusions. This
last impression, already experienced within the sheltered circle of the
Joyeuse's great lamp, he received perhaps still more vividly in this
atmosphere, less warm, less peaceful, wherein art also entered to add
its despairing or glorious uncertainty; and it was with a moved heart
that he listened to Andre Maranne as he spoke to him of Elise, of
the examinations which it was taking her so long to pass, of the
difficulties of photography, of all that unforeseen element in his life
which would end certainly "when he could have secured the production
of _Revolt_," a charming smile accompanying on the poet's lips this so
often expressed hope, which he was wont himself to hasten to make fun
of, as though to deprive others of the right to do so.

MEMOIRS OF AN OFFICE PORTER SERVANTS

Truly Fortune in Paris has bewildering turns of the wheel!

To have seen the Territorial Bank as I have seen it, the rooms without
fires, never swept, the desert with its dust, protested bills piled high
as _that_ on the desks, every week a notice of sale posted at the door,
my stew spreading throughout the whole place the odour of a poor man's
kitchen; and then to witness now the reconstitution of our company in
its newly furnished halls, in which I have orders to light fires big
enough for a Government department, amid a busy crowd, blowings of
whistles, electric bells, gold pieces piled up till they fall over; it
savours of miracle. I need to look at myself in the glass before I can
believe it, to see in the mirror my iron-gray coat, trimmed with silver,
my white tie, my usher's chain like the one I used to wear at the
Faculty on the days when there were sittings. And to think that to work
this transformation, to bring back to our brows gaiety, the mother of
concord, to restore to our scrip its value ten times ove