rs, and
dealers, will guess at once that Pons' collection is now in question.
Wherefore it will suffice if we are present during a conversation that
took place only a few days ago in Count Popinot's house. He was
showing his splendid collection to some visitors.

"M. le Comte, you possess treasures indeed," remarked a distinguished
foreigner.

"Oh! as to pictures, nobody can hope to rival an obscure collector,
one Elie Magus, a Jew, an old monomaniac, the prince of
picture-lovers," the Count replied modestly. "And when I say nobody,
I do not speak of Paris only, but of all Europe. When the old Croesus
dies, France ought to spare seven or eight millions of francs to buy
the gallery. For curiosities, my collection is good enough to be
talked about--"

"But how, busy as you are, and with a fortune so honestly earned in
the first instance in business--"

"In the drug business," broke in Popinot; "you ask how I can continue
to interest myself in things that are a drug in the market--"

"No," returned the foreign visitor, "no, but how do you find time to
collect? The curiosities do not come to find you."

"My father-in-law owned the nucleus of the collection," said the young
Vicomtess; "he loved the arts and beautiful work, but most of his
treasures came to him through me."

"Through you, madame?--So young! and yet have you such vices as this?"
asked a Russian prince.

Russians are by nature imitative; imitative indeed to such an extent
that the diseases of civilization break out among them in epidemics.
The bric-a-brac mania had appeared in an acute form in St. Petersburg,
and the Russians caused such a rise of prices in the "art line," as
Remonencq would say, that collection became impossible. The prince who
spoke had come to Paris solely to buy bric-a-brac.

"The treasures came to me, prince, on the death of a cousin. He was
very fond of me," added the Vicomtesse Popinot, "and he had spent some
forty odd years since 1805 in picking up these masterpieces
everywhere, but more especially in Italy--"

"And what was his name?" inquired the English lord.

"Pons," said President Camusot.

"A charming man he was," piped the Presidente in her thin, flute
tones, "very clever, very eccentric, and yet very good-hearted. This
fan that you admire once belonged to Mme. de Pompadour; he gave it to
me one morning with a pretty speech which you must permit me not to
repeat," and she glanced at her daughter.

"Mme. la Vicom