Some one knocked at the door.

“Stay where you are,” said Sylvestre; “it’s a customer come for the background of an engraving.  I’ll be with you in two minutes.  Come in!” As he was speaking he drew the curtain in front of me, and through the thin stuff I could see him going toward the door, which had just opened.

“Monsieur Lampron?”

“I am he, Monsieur.”

“You don’t recognize me, Monsieur?”

“No, Monsieur.”

“I’m surprised at that.”

“Why so?  I have never seen you.”

“You have taken my portrait!”

“Really!”

I was watching Lampron, who was plainly angered at this brusque introduction.  He left the chair which he had begun to push forward, let it stand in the middle of the studio, and went and sat down on his engraving-stool in the corner, with a somewhat haughty look, and a defiant smile lurking behind his beard.  He rested his elbow on the table and began to drum with his fingers.

“What I have had the honor to inform you is the simple truth, Monsieur.  I am Monsieur Charnot of the Institute.”

Lampron gave a glance in my direction, and his frown melted away.

“Excuse me, Monsieur; I only know you by your back.  Had you shown me that side of you I might perhaps have recognized—­”

“I have not come here to listen to jokes, Monsieur; and I should have come sooner to demand an explanation, but that it was only this morning I heard of what I consider a deplorable abuse of your talents.  But picture-shows are not in my line.  I did not see myself there.  My friend Flamaran had to tell me that I was to be seen at the last Salon, together with my daughter, sitting on a tree-trunk in the forest of Saint-Germain.  Is it true, Monsieur, that you drew me sitting on a trunk?”

“Quite true.”

“That’s a trifle too rustic for a man who does not go outside of Paris three times a year.  And my daughter you drew in profile—­a good likeness, I believe.”

“It was as like as I could make it.”

“Then you confess that you drew both my daughter and myself?”

“Yes, I do, Monsieur.”

“It may not be so easy for you to explain by what right you did so; I await your explanation, Monsieur.”

“I might very well give you no explanation whatever,” replied Lampron, who was beginning to lose patience.  “I might also reply that I no more needed to ask your permission to sketch you than to ask that of the beeches, oaks, elms, and willows.  I might tell you that you formed part of the landscape, that every artist who sketches a bit of underwood has the right to stick a figure in—­”

“A figure, Monsieur! do you call me a figure?”

“A gentleman, I mean.  Artists call it figure.  Well, I might give you this reason, which is quite good enough for you, but it is not the real one.  I prefer to tell you frankly what passed.  You have a very beautiful daughter, Monsieur.”