so now he shook his hand cordially, exclaiming:

'Your machine's very good too. Ah, my fine fellow, draughtsmanship has
no terrors for you!'

'No, indeed,' declared Chaine, who had grown purple with vanity under
his black bushy beard.

He and Mahoudeau joined the band, and the latter asked the others
whether they had seen Chambouvard's 'Sower.' It was marvellous; the
only piece of statuary worth looking at in the Salon. Thereupon they all
followed him into the garden, which the crowd was now invading.

'There,' said Mahoudeau, stopping in the middle of the central path:
'Chambouvard is standing just in front of his "Sower."'

In fact, a portly man stood there, solidly planted on his fat legs, and
admiring his handiwork. With his head sunk between his shoulders, he had
the heavy, handsome features of a Hindu idol. He was said to be the son
of a veterinary surgeon of the neighbourhood of Amiens. At forty-five
he had already produced twenty masterpieces: statues all simplicity
and life, flesh modern and palpitating, kneaded by a workman of
genius, without any pretension to refinement; and all this was chance
production, for he furnished work as a field bears harvest, good one
day, bad the next, in absolute ignorance of what he created. He carried
the lack of critical acumen to such a degree that he made no distinction
between the most glorious offspring of his hands and the detestably
grotesque figures which now and then he chanced to put together. Never
troubled by nervous feverishness, never doubting, always solid and
convinced, he had the pride of a god.

'Wonderful, the "Sower"!' whispered Claude. 'What a figure! and what an
attitude!'

Fagerolles, who had not looked at the statue, was highly amused by the
great man, and the string of young, open-mouthed disciples whom as usual
he dragged at his tail.

'Just look at them, one would think they are taking the sacrament, 'pon
my word--and he himself, eh? What a fine brutish face he has!'

Isolated, and quite at his ease, amidst the general curiosity,
Chambouvard stood there wondering, with the stupefied air of a man who
is surprised at having produced such a masterpiece. He seemed to behold
it for the first time, and was unable to get over his astonishment. Then
an expression of delight gradually stole over his broad face, he nodded
his head, and burst into soft, irresistible laughter, repeating a dozen
times, 'It's comical, it's really comical!'

His train o