up and down the boulevards, and smoking many
cigarettes--from the Madeleine to the Porte St.-Martin and
back--again and again.

[Illustration: "'BONJOUR, MONSIEUR BONZIG'"]

"Non, mon cher Josselin," said Bonzig, in answer to a question of
Barty's--"non, I hare not yet seen the sea ..; it will come in time. But
at least I am no longer a damned usher (un sacre pion d'etudes); I am an
artist--un peintre de marines--at last! It is a happy existence. I fear
my talent is not very imposing, but my perseverance is exceptional, and
I am only forty-five. Anyhow, I am able to support myself--not in
splendor, certainly; but my wants are few and my health is perfect. I
will put you up to many things, my dear boy.... We will storm the
citadel of fame together...."

Bonzig had a garret somewhere, and painted in the studio of a
friend, not far from Barty's lodging. This friend, one Lirieux, was
a very clever young man--a genius, according to Bonzig. He drew
illustrations on wood with surprising quickness and facility and
verve, and painted little oil-pictures of sporting life--a garde
champetre in a wood with his dog, or with his dog on a dusty road,
or crossing a stream, or getting over a stile, and so forth. The dog
was never left out; and these things he would sell for twenty,
thirty, even fifty francs. He painted very quick and very well. He
was also a capital good fellow, industrious and cultivated and
refined, and full of self-respect.

Next to his studio he had a small bedroom which he shared with a
younger brother, who had just got a small government appointment
that kept him at work all day, in some ministere. In this studio
Bonzig painted his marines--still helping himself from _La France
Maritime_, as he used to do at Brossard's.

He was good at masts and cordage against an evening sky--"l'heure ou
le jaune de Naples rentre dans la nature," as he called it. He was
also excellent at foam, and far-off breakers, and sea-gulls, but
very bad at the human figure--sailors and fishermen and their wives.
Sometimes Lirieux would put one in for him with a few dabs.

As soon as Bonzig had finished a picture, which didn't take very
long, he carried it round, still wet, to the small dealers, bearing
it very carefully aloft, so as not to smudge it. Sometimes (if there
were a sailor by Lirieux) he would get five or even ten francs for
it; and then it was "Mon Aldegonde" with him all the rest of the
day; for success always took the