"I want to experiment on something large," he replied.

"On me, for instance?"

"Ah! that came too close for jesting; but I do want to watch the action
of that solution on a more highly organized living body; there is that
big white rabbit," he said, following me into the studio.

Jack Scott, wearing a paint-stained jacket, came wandering in,
appropriated all the Oriental sweetmeats he could lay his hands on,
looted the cigarette case, and finally he and Boris disappeared together
to visit the Luxembourg Gallery, where a new silver bronze by Rodin and a
landscape of Monet's were claiming the exclusive attention of artistic
France. I went back to the studio, and resumed my work. It was a
Renaissance screen, which Boris wanted me to paint for Genevieve's
boudoir. But the small boy who was unwillingly dawdling through a series
of poses for it, to-day refused all bribes to be good. He never rested an
instant in the same position, and inside of five minutes I had as many
different outlines of the little beggar.

"Are you posing, or are you executing a song and dance, my friend?" I
inquired.

"Whichever monsieur pleases," he replied, with an angelic smile.

Of course I dismissed him for the day, and of course I paid him for the
full time, that being the way we spoil our models.

After the young imp had gone, I made a few perfunctory daubs at my work,
but was so thoroughly out of humour, that it took me the rest of the