feverish excitement that hats and walking-sticks were waved in the
air above the tumultuous surging of heads.

And it was there, 'on the easel,' that 'The Dead Child' at last made its
appearance. During the previous week Fagerolles, whose pocket-book was
full of memoranda, had resorted to all kinds of complicated bartering
in order to obtain votes in Claude's favour; but it was a difficult
business, it did not tally with his other engagements, and he only met
with refusals as soon as he mentioned his friend's name. He complained,
moreover, that he could get no help from Bongrand, who did not carry a
pocket-book, and who was so clumsy, too, that he spoilt the best causes
by his outbursts of unseasonable frankness. A score of times already
would Fagerolles have forsaken Claude, had it not been for his obstinate
desire to try his power over his colleagues by asking for the admittance
of a work by Lantier, which was a reputed impossibility. However, people
should see if he wasn't yet strong enough to force the committee into
compliance with his wishes. Moreover, perhaps from the depths of his
conscience there came a cry for justice, an unconfessed feeling of
respect for the man whose ideas he had stolen.

As it happened, Mazel was in a frightfully bad humour that day. At the
outset of the sitting the brigadier had come to him, saying: 'There
was a mistake yesterday, Monsieur Mazel. A _hors-concours_* picture was
rejected. You know, No. 2520, a nude woman under a tree.'

* A painting by one of those artists who, from the fact that they
had obtained medals at previous Salons, had the right to go on
exhibiting at long as they lived, the committee being debarred
from rejecting their work however bad it might be.--ED.

In fact, on the day before, this painting had been consigned to the
grave amid unanimous contempt, nobody having noticed that it was the
work of an old classical painter highly respected by the Institute; and
the brigadier's fright, and the amusing circumstance of a picture having
thus been condemned by mistake, enlivened the younger members of the
committee and made them sneer in a provoking manner.

Mazel, who detested such mishaps, which he rightly felt were disastrous
for the authority of the School of Arts, made an angry gesture, and
drily said:

'Well, fish it out again, and put it among the admitted pictures. It
isn't so surprising, there was an intolerable noise yesterday. How can
one