Thereupon Dubuche turned to a corner of the greyish wall on which the addresses of several models were written in chalk, haphazard.  The women particularly left their cards in that way, in awkward, childish handwriting.  Zoe Piedefer, 7 Rue Campagne-Premiere, a big brunette, who was getting rather too stout, had scrawled her sign manual right across the names of little Flore Beauchamp, 32 Rue de Laval, and Judith Vaquez, 69 Rue du Rocher, a Jewess, both of whom were too thin.

‘I say, have you got the address?’ resumed Dubuche.

Then Claude flew into a passion.  ’Don’t pester me!  I don’t know and don’t care.  You’re a nuisance, worrying like that just when a fellow wants to work.’

Sandoz had not said a word.  Surprised at first, he had soon smiled.  He was gifted with more penetration than Dubuche, so he gave him a knowing nod, and they then began to chaff.  They begged Claude’s pardon; the moment he wanted to keep the young person for his personal use, they would not ask him to lend her.  Ha! ha! the scamp went hunting about for pretty models.  And where had he picked up that one?

More and more embarrassed by these remarks, Claude went on fidgetting.  ‘What a couple of idiots you are!’ he exclaimed, ’If you only knew what fools you are making of yourselves.  That’ll do.  You really make me sorry for both of you.’

His voice sounded so stern that they both became silent immediately, while he, after once more scratching out the woman’s head, drew it anew and began to paint it in, following his sketch of Christine, but with a feverish, unsteady touch which went at random.

‘Just give me another ten minutes, will you?’ he repeated.  ’I will rough in the shoulders to be ready for to-morrow, and then we’ll go down.’

Sandoz and Dubuche, knowing that it was of no use to prevent him from killing himself in this fashion, resigned themselves to the inevitable.  The latter lighted his pipe, and flung himself on the couch.  He was the only one of the three who smoked; the others had never taken kindly to tobacco, always feeling qualmish after a cigar.  And when Dubuche was stretched on his back, his eyes turned towards the clouds of smoke he raised, he began to talk about himself in an interminable monotonous fashion.  Ah! that confounded Paris, how one had to work one’s fingers to the bone in order to get on.  He recalled the fifteen months of apprenticeship he had spent with his master, the celebrated Dequersonniere, a former grand-prize man, now architect of the Civil Branch of Public Works, an officer of the Legion of Honour and a member of the Institute, whose chief architectural performance, the church of St. Mathieu, was a cross between a pastry-cook’s mould 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