eager for another bite,
had started on the massacre again. Their voices, at first mere whispers,
gradually grew louder, till at last they began to shout.

'Oh! the man, I abandon the man to you,' said Jory, who was speaking of
Fagerolles. 'He isn't worth much. And he out-generalled you, it's true.
Ah! how he did get the better of you fellows, by breaking off from you
and carving success for himself on your backs! You were certainly not at
all cute.'

Mahoudeau, waxing furious, replied:

'Of course! It sufficed for us to be with Claude, to be turned away
everywhere.'

'It was Claude who did for us!' so Gagniere squarely asserted.

And thus they went on, relinquishing Fagerolles, whom they reproached
for toadying the newspapers, for allying himself with their enemies and
wheedling sexagenarian baronesses, to fall upon Claude, who now became
the great culprit. Well, after all, the other was only a hussy, one of
the many found in the artistic fraternity, fellows who accost the public
at street corners, leave their comrades in the lurch, and victimise them
so as to get the bourgeois into their studios. But Claude, that abortive
great artist, that impotent fellow who couldn't set a figure on its legs
in spite of all his pride, hadn't he utterly compromised them, hadn't he
let them in altogether? Ah! yes, success might have been won by breaking
off. If they had been able to begin over again, they wouldn't have been
idiots enough to cling obstinately to impossible principles! And they
accused Claude of having paralysed them, of having traded on them--yes,
traded on them, but in so clumsy and dull-witted a manner that he
himself had not derived any benefit by it.

'Why, as for me,' resumed Mahoudeau, 'didn't he make me quite idiotic at
one moment? When I think of it, I sound myself, and remain wondering
why I ever joined his band. Am I at all like him? Was there ever any one
thing in common between us, eh? Ah! it's exasperating to find the truth
out so late in the day!'

'And as for myself,' said Gagniere, 'he robbed me of my originality. Do
you think it has amused me, each time I have exhibited a painting during
the last fifteen years, to hear people saying behind me, "That's a
Claude!" Oh! I've had enough of it, I prefer not to paint any more.
All the same, if I had seen clearly in former times, I shouldn't have
associated with him.'

It was a stampede, the snapping of the last ties, in their stupefaction
at suddenl