n the age of ten and fifteen--who can tell the real age
of a Parisian child? _Le pere_ Sinel was one of the best known models in
Paris. He was a living _ecorche_, a creature designed for the study of
anatomy, for he had a most extraordinary faculty of showing the action
of any and every muscle; in fact he could, if the circumstances
required, give himself the appearance of having been skinned, scalped,
or flayed alive. He was ever boasting of his participation in the great
pictorial and plastic works that had made a mark in his days, and always
claiming his full share of the laurels awarded to them.

"It is not so much my exceptional figure that has inspired my friends,
as it is my experience that has guided them," he told us. "Did not the
great Monsieur Delacroix say with his characteristic modesty, when his
plafond in the Galerie d'Apollon was uncovered: 'Where should I be
without the assistance of my friend Sinel?' _Oui_, messieurs, he was
right, and such a plafond is not produced in a day. 'Art is short and
sittings are long,' as the poet says; _Voyez_, Monsieur Ingres! Many an
hour was I nailed to the cross as a thief, before we could get the true
agony. I well remember his saying 'Sinel, _mon ami_, till I knew you, I
had no idea what the flexor of a third and fourth toe could do, nor did
I know what acting was till I heard you.'"

"Allons donc, blagueur"--from the students--"what do you know about
acting?"

"Moderate your language if you please, messieurs. You would not laugh if
you knew the position I hold in the theatrical world--" With much
dignity--"I am of the Theatre Francais."

"Shut up, _tais toi_" cries one.

"To be sure you play the fool," shouts another.

"_Il n'y a pas de tais toi_, messieurs; but I must be off and study my
part. To-night I am on with Mademoiselle Rachel. I am cast for 'Le
peuple murmure.'"

To return to the daughter, I must say she was the most useful little
studio drudge I ever knew. Her appearance was against her, for she was
plain and generally unkempt and untidy; the cleanest parts of her apron
were the holes, but for all that she was an ever-handy little monkey of
all work. She would roast chestnuts on the stove according to her own
particular system, and would feed that stove with heterogeneous fuel
that it would not have taken from another hand. She would water the
garden--a sort of shelf suspended outside the window--would drench
unsuspecting but indiscreet cats, and w