d centimetres to inches and feet--and ten to twelve!

"After this he performs some very clever tricks with billiard-balls;
juggles three of them in each hand simultaneously, and explains to
me that this is an exceptional achievement, as he only sees out of
one eye, and that no acrobat living could do the same with one eye
shut.

"I quite believe him, and wonder and admire, and his face beams with
honest satisfaction--and this is the man who wrote _La quatrieme
Dimension_!

"Then he tells me some very funny French school-boy stories; he
delights in my hearty laughter; they are capital stories, but I had
heard them all before--when I was at school.

"'And now, M. Josselin,' I say, 'a propos of that last story you've
just told me; in the _Trepassees de Francois Villon_ you have
omitted "la tres-sage Heloise" altogether.'

"'Oh, have I? How stupid of me!--Abelard and all that! Ah
well--there's plenty of time--nous allons arranger tout ca! All that
sort of thing comes to me in the night, you know, when I'm half
asleep in bed--a--a--I mean after lunch in the afternoon, when I
take my siesta.'

"Then he leads me into his studio and shows me pencil studies from
the life, things of ineffable beauty of form and expression--things
that haunt the memory.

"'Show me a study for Dejanire,' I say.

"'Oh! I'll draw Dejanire for you,' and he takes a soft pencil and a
piece of smooth card-board, and in five minutes draws me an outline
of a naked woman on a centaur's back, a creature of touching beauty
no other hand in the world could produce--so aristocratically
delicately English and of to-day--so severely, so nobly and
classically Greek. C'est la chastete meme--mais ce n'est pas
Dejanire!

"He gives me this sketch, which I rechristen Godiva, and value as I
value few things I possess.

"Then he shows me pencil studies of children's heads, from nature,
and I exclaim:

"'O Heaven, what a dream of childhood! Childhood is never so
beautiful as that.'

"'Oh yes it is, in England, I assure you,' says he. 'I'll show you
_my_ children presently; and you, have you any children?'

"'Alas! no,' I reply; 'I am a bachelor.'

"I remark that from time to time, just as the moon veils itself
behind a passing cloud, the radiance of his brilliant and jovial
physiognomy is