and treated his admirers all around.

In the midst of the chatter and bustle which this incident occasioned, a
pale, earnest-looking man of about five-and-thirty, coming past our
table on his way out of the Cafe, touched Mueller on the arm, bent down,
and said quietly:--

"Mueller, will you do me a favor!"

"A hundred, Monsieur," replied my companion; half rising, and with an
air of unusual respect and alacrity.

"Thanks, one will be enough. Do you see that man yonder, sitting alone
in the corner, with his back to the light?"

"I do."

"Good--don't look at him again, for fear of attracting his attention. I
have been trying for the last half hour to get a sketch of his head, but
I think he suspected me. Anyhow he moved so often, and so hid his face
with his hands and the newspaper, that I was completely baffled. Now it
is a remarkable head--just the head I have been wanting for my Marshal
Romero--and if, with your rapid pencil and your skill in seizing
expression, you could manage this for me...."

"I will do my best," said Mueller.

"A thousand thanks. I will go now; for when I am gone he will be off his
guard. You will find me in the den up to three o'clock. Adieu."

Saying which, the stranger passed on, and went out.

"That's Flandrin!" said Mueller.

"Really?" I said. "Flandrin! And you know him?"

But in truth I only answered thus to cover my own ignorance; for I knew
little at that time of modern French art, and I had never even heard the
name of Flandrin before.

"Know him!" echoed Mueller. "I should think so. Why, I worked in his
studio for nearly two years."

And then he explained to me that this great painter (great even then,
though as yet appreciated only in certain choice Parisian circles, and
not known out of France) was at work upon a grand historical subject
connected with the Spanish persecutions in the Netherlands--the
execution of Egmont and Horn, in short, in the great square before the
Hotel de Ville in Brussels.

"But the main point now," said Mueller, "is to get the sketch--and how?
Confound the fellow! while he keeps his back to the light and his head
down like that, the thing is impossible. Anyhow I can't do it without an
accomplice. You must help me."

"I! What can I do?"

"Go and sit near him--speak to him--make him look up--keep him, if
possible, for a few minutes in conversation--nothing easier."

"Nothing easier, perhaps, if I were you; but, being only myself, few
th