cept the world
(whether at home or abroad) as they find it, and whose favourite part is
that of the spectator; yet even I was listening with ill-suppressed
disgust, when I was aware of a violent plucking at my sleeve.

"Is he saying he kicked her downstairs?" asked Pinkerton, white as St.
Stephen.

"Yes," said I: "his discarded mistress; and then he pelted her with
stones. I suppose that's what gave him the idea for his picture. He has
just been alleging the pathetic excuse that she was old enough to be his
mother."

Something like a sob broke from Pinkerton. "Tell him," he gasped--"I
can't speak this language, though I understand a little; I never had any
proper education--tell him I am going to punch his head."

"For God's sake do nothing of the sort!" I cried; "they don't understand
that sort of thing here"; and I tried to bundle him out.

"Tell him first what we think of him," he objected. "Let me tell him
what he looks in the eyes of a pure-minded American."

"Leave that to me," said I, thrusting Pinkerton clear through the door.

"_Qu'est-ce qu'il a_?"[1] inquired the student.

"_Monsieur se sent mal au coeur d'avoir trop regarde votre croute_,"[2]
said I, and made my escape, scarce with dignity, at Pinkerton's heels.

"What did you say to him?" he asked.

"The only thing that he could feel," was my reply.

After this scene, the freedom with which I had ejected my new
acquaintance, and the precipitation with which I had followed him, the
least I could do was to propose luncheon. I have forgot the name of the
place to which I led him, nothing loath; it was on the far side of the
Luxembourg at least, with a garden behind, where we were speedily set
face to face at table, and began to dig into each other's history and
character, like terriers after rabbits, according to the approved
fashion of youth.

Pinkerton's parents were from the Old Country; there, too, I
incidentally gathered, he had himself been born, though it was a
circumstance he seemed prone to forget. Whether he had run away, or his
father had turned him out, I never fathomed; but about the age of twelve
he was thrown upon his own resources. A travelling tin-type photographer
picked him up, like a haw out of a hedgerow, on a wayside in New Jersey;
took a fancy to the urchin; carried him on with him in his wandering
life; taught him all he knew himself--to take tin-types (as well as I
can make out) and doubt the Scriptures; and died at last