t a large
screen behind which the models undressed; all things bearing traces of
the perilous lives they led, and showing picturesque seams and scars
where they were begrimed with the scrapings from perennial palettes. The
professor very liberally gave his instruction gratis. For the working
expenses of the Atelier the students clubbed together, each contributing
ten francs per month to the "masse." At the time I entered, Claude was
"Massier," that is, a sort of secretary, treasurer, and boss combined.
He occupied that exalted position with much distinction, for he could be
alternately serious and absurd, weighty and trivial. Common sense on the
one hand; an uncommon amount of nonsense on the other. In fact his
character was a curious compound of elements seemingly opposed, but
working in harmony together. He was _facile princeps_ as a _blagueur_,
that is, he could chaff unmercifully, talk tall, make a fool imagine
himself wise, and a wise man feel foolish. It takes a double-distilled
Frenchman to make a full-blown _blagueur_, and such a man was Dupont.

We were a lively set, and the jokes that were bandied about, coupled
with the most unparliamentary, not to say vituperative language, at
first startled me. But the Rapin's bark is worse than his bite. "Il est
defendu de chahuter la religion et la famille" was an unwritten law,
that excluded those two delicate topics, the family and religion, from
the field of word-battle. Another law bade you keep your temper. We
might have hurled the most obnoxious of epithets at one another, but
when the available catalogue of abuse was exhausted, we would wind up
with some good-humoured trump card, like "C'est egal, je suis plus bete
que toi," which, freely translated, says, "Never mind, I am the bigger
fool of the two."

One of the first things that struck me in the atelier was a large felt
hat forming a sort of centre on the ceiling. That was Gobelot's hat. It
was there just because some of the boys had taken a dislike to it; in
fact it was a priggish hat, and as Gobelot had a twitchy sort of a face
that would work well under feelings of surprise and resentment, they
thought they would like to watch him, from the first moment when he
would miss his hat, to the last when he would discover its whereabouts.

It had got fixed on the ceiling with some difficulty, whilst its owner
had fallen asleep by the stove. The model table was placed in the centre
of the room, and the ladder held