kind of handiwork that can be carried on at home. In one of the
narrowest parts of the street a small newspaper shop made him stop. It
was betwixt a hairdresser's and a tripeseller's, and had an outdoor
display of idiotic prints, romantic balderdash mixed with filthy
caricatures fit for a barrack-room. In front of these 'pictures,' a
lank hobbledehoy stood lost in reverie, while two young girls nudged
each other and jeered. He felt inclined to slap their faces, but he
hurried across the road, for Fagerolles' house happened to be
opposite. It was a dark old tenement, standing forward from the
others, and was bespattered like them with the mud from the gutters.
As an omnibus came up, Claude barely had time to jump upon the foot
pavement, there reduced to the proportions of a simple ledge; the
wheels brushed against his chest, and he was drenched to his knees.

M. Fagerolles, senior, a manufacturer of artistic zinc-work, had his
workshops on the ground floor of the building, and having converted
two large front rooms on the first floor into a warehouse, he
personally occupied a small, dark, cellar-like apartment overlooking
the courtyard. It was there that his son Henri had grown up, like a
true specimen of the flora of the Paris streets, at the edge of that
narrow pavement constantly struck by the omnibus wheels, always
soddened by the gutter water, and opposite the print and newspaper
shop, flanked by the barber's and tripeseller's. At first his father
had made an ornamental draughtsman of him for personal use. But when
the lad had developed higher ambition, taking to painting proper, and
talking about the School of Arts, there had been quarrels, blows, a
series of separations and reconciliations. Even now, although Henri
had already achieved some successes, the manufacturer of artistic
zinc-work, while letting him have his will, treated him harshly, like
a lad who was spoiling his career.