hand, he asked, "What is
your name, my friend?"

"Jacques Jasmin," he timidly replied. "A good name," said Nodier. "At
the same time, while you give fair play to your genius, don't give
up the manufacture of periwigs, for this is an honest trade, while
verse-making might prove only a frivolous distraction."

Nodier then took his leave, but from that time forward Jasmin and he
continued the best of friends. A few years later, when the first volume
of the Papillotos appeared, Nodier published his account of the above
interview in Le Temps. He afterwards announced in the Quotidienne the
outburst of a new poet on the banks of the Garonne--a poet full of
piquant charm, of inspired harmony--a Lamartine, a Victor Hugo, a Gascon
Beranger!

After Nodier's departure, Madame Jasmin took a more favourable view of
the versification of her husband. She no longer chided him. The shop
became more crowded with customers. Ladies came to have their hair
dressed by the poet: it was so original! He delighted them with singing
or chanting his verses. He had a sympathetic, perhaps a mesmeric voice,
which touched the souls of his hearers, and threw them into the sweetest
of dreams.

Besides attending to his shop, he was accustomed to go out in the
afternoons to dress the hair of four or five ladies. This occupied him
for about two hours, and when he found the ladies at home, he returned
with four or five francs in his purse. But often they were not at home,
and he came home francless. Eventually he gave up this part of
his trade. The receipts at the shop were more remunerative. Madame
encouraged this economical eform; she was accustomed to call it Jasmin's
coup d'etat.

The evenings passed pleasantly. Jasmin took his guitar and sang to his
wife and children; or, in the summer evenings they would walk under
the beautiful elms in front of the Gravier, where Jasmin was ready for
business at any moment. Such prudence, such iligence, could not but have
its effect. When Jasmin's first volume of the Papillotos was published,
it was received with enthusiasm.

"The songs, the curl-papers," said Jasmin, "brought in such a rivulet
of silver, that, in my poetic joy, I broke into morsels and burnt in the
fire that dreaded arm-chair in which my ancestors had been carried to
the hospital to die."

Madame Jasmin now became quite enthusiastic. Instead of breaking the
poet's pens and throwing his ink into the fire, she bought the best
pens and the bes