couldn't pay him to be only that), as well as of a model; in short I
made up my mind to adopt my bright adventurer if he would agree to
officiate in the double capacity. He jumped at my offer, and in the
event my rashness (for I had known nothing about him), was not
brought home to me. He proved a sympathetic though a desultory
ministrant, and had in a wonderful degree the sentiment de la pose.
It was uncultivated, instinctive; a part of the happy instinct which
had guided him to my door and helped him to spell out my name on the
card nailed to it. He had had no other introduction to me than a
guess, from the shape of my high north window, seen outside, that my
place was a studio and that as a studio it would contain an artist.
He had wandered to England in search of fortune, like other
itinerants, and had embarked, with a partner and a small green
handcart, on the sale of penny ices. The ices had melted away and
the partner had dissolved in their train. My young man wore tight
yellow trousers with reddish stripes and his name was Oronte. He was
sallow but fair, and when I put him into some old clothes of my own
he looked like an Englishman. He was as good as Miss Churm, who
could look, when required, like an Italian.



CHAPTER IV.



I thought Mrs. Monarch's face slightly convulsed when, on her coming
back with her husband, she found Oronte installed. It was strange to
have to recognise in a scrap of a lazzarone a competitor to her
magnificent Major. It was she who scented danger first, for the