and a clock in the so-called First Empire style. A good sort of
fellow, after all, was this Dequersonniere whom Dubuche chaffed, while
inwardly sharing his reverence for the old classical formulas.
However, but for his fellow-pupils, the young man would not have
learnt much at the studio in the Rue du Four, for the master only paid
a running visit to the place some three times a week. A set of
ferocious brutes, were those comrades of his, who had made his life
jolly hard in the beginning, but who, at least, had taught him how to
prepare a surface, outline, and wash in a plan. And how often had he
had to content himself with a cup of chocolate and a roll for dejeuner
in order to pay the necessary five-and-twenty francs to the
superintendent! And the sheets of paper he had laboriously smudged,
and the hours he had spent in poring over books before he had dared to
present himself at the School! And he had narrowly escaped being
plucked in spite of all his assiduous endeavours. He lacked
imagination, and the drawings he submitted, a caryatide and a summer
dining-room, both extremely mediocre performances, had classed him at
the bottom of the list. Fortunately, he had made up for this in his
oral examination with his logarithms, geometry, and history of
architecture, for he was very strong in the scientific parts. Now that
he was attending the School as a second-class student, he had to toil
and moil in order to secure a first-class diploma. It was a dog's
life, there was no end to it, said he.

He stretched his legs apart, high upon the cushions, and smoked
vigorously and regularly.

'What with their courses of perspective, of descriptive geometry, of
stereotomy, of building, and of the history of art--ah! upon my word,
they do make one blacken paper with notes. And every month there is a