esponded to. Every Anglo-Saxon student seized his stool; in a
moment the studio was full of bloody coxcombs, the French fleeing in
disorder for the door, the victim liberated and amazed. In this feat of
arms, both English-speaking nations covered themselves with glory; but
I am proud to claim the author of the whole for an American, and a
patriotic American at that, being the same gentleman who had
subsequently to be held down in the bottom of a box during a performance
of _L'Oncle Sam_, sobbing at intervals, "My country! O my country!"
while yet another (my new acquaintance, Pinkerton) was supposed to have
made the most conspicuous figure in the actual battle. At one blow he
had broken his own stool, and sent the largest of his opponents back
foremost through what we used to call a "conscientious nude." It appears
that, in the continuation of his flight, this fallen warrior issued on
the boulevard still framed in the burst canvas.

It will be understood how much talk the incident aroused in the
students' quarter, and that I was highly gratified to make the
acquaintance of my famous countryman. It chanced I was to see more of
the Quixotic side of his character before the morning was done; for, as
we continued to stroll together, I found myself near the studio of a
young Frenchman whose work I had promised to examine, and in the fashion
of the quarter carried up Pinkerton along with me. Some of my comrades
of this date were pretty obnoxious fellows. I could almost always admire
and respect the grown-up practitioners of art in Paris; but many of
those who were still in a state of pupilage were sorry specimens--so
much so that I used often to wonder where the painters came from, and
where the brutes of students went to. A similar mystery hangs over the
intermediate stages of the medical profession, and must have perplexed
the least observant. The ruffian, at least, whom I now carried Pinkerton
to visit, was one of the most crapulous in the quarter. He turned out
for our delectation a huge "crust" (as we used to call it) of St.
Stephen, wallowing in red upon his belly in an exhausted receiver, and a
crowd of Hebrews in blue, green, and yellow, pelting him--apparently
with buns; and while we gazed upon this contrivance, regaled us with a
piece of his own recent biography, of which his mind was still very
full, and which, he seemed to fancy, represented him in an heroic
posture. I was one of those cosmopolitan Americans who ac