I.

"TUMBLINGS"

_WITH DU MAURIER AND FRIENDS._


"I well remember" my first meeting with du Maurier in the class-rooms
of the famous Antwerp Academy.

I was painting and blagueing, as one paints and blagues in the storm
and stress period of one's artistic development.

It had been my good fortune to commence my studies in Paris; it was
there, in the atelier Gleyre, I had cultivated, I think I may say,
very successfully, the essentially French art of chaffing, known by
the name of "La blague parisienne," and I now was able to give my
less lively Flemish friends and fellow-students the full benefit of my
experience. Many pleasant recollections bound me to Paris; so, when
I heard one day that a "Nouveau" had arrived, straight from my old
atelier Gleyre, I was not a little impatient to make his acquaintance.

[Illustration: THE ATELIER GLEYRE.]

The new-comer was du Maurier. I sought him out, and, taking it for
granted that he was a Frenchman, I addressed him in French; we were
soon engaged in lively conversation, asking and answering questions