oudon; this is a plain piece of business," said he;
"it's done every day; it's even typical. How are all those fellows over
here in Paris, Henderson, Sumner, Long?--it's all the same story: a
young man just plum full of artistic genius on the one side, a man of
business on the other who doesn't know what to do with his dollars----"

"But, you fool, you're as poor as a rat," I cried.

"You wait till I get my irons in the fire!" returned Pinkerton. "I'm
bound to be rich; and I tell you I mean to have some of the fun as I go
along. Here's your first allowance; take it at the hand of a friend; I'm
one that holds friendship sacred, as you do yourself. It's only a
hundred francs; you'll get the same every month, and as soon as my
business begins to expand we'll increase it to something fitting. And so
far from it's being a favour, just let me handle your statuary for the
American market, and I'll call it one of the smartest strokes of
business in my life."

It took me a long time, and it had cost us both much grateful and
painful emotion, before I had finally managed to refuse his offer and
compounded for a bottle of particular wine. He dropped the subject at
last suddenly with a "Never mind; that's all done with"; nor did he
again refer to the subject, though we passed together the rest of the
afternoon, and I accompanied him, on his departure, to the doors of the
waiting-room at St. Lazare. I felt myself strangely alone; a voice told
me that I had rejected both the counsels of wisdom and the helping hand
of friendship; and as I passed through the great bright city on my
homeward way, I measured it for the first time with the eye of an
adversary.

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH I AM DOWN ON MY LUCK IN PARIS

In no part of the world is starvation an agreeable business; but I
believe it is admitted there is no worse place to starve in than this
city of Paris. The appearances of life are there so especially gay, it
is so much a magnified beer-garden, the houses are so ornate, the
theatres so numerous, the very pace of the vehicles is so brisk, that a
man in any deep concern of mind or pain of body is constantly driven in
upon himself. In his own eyes, he seems the one serious creature moving
in a world of horrible unreality; voluble people issuing from a cafe,
the _queue_ at theatre-doors, Sunday cabfuls of second-rate
pleasure-seekers, the bedizened ladies of the pavement, the show in the
jewellers' windows--all the famili