would duck me. Next instant he dropped my arm and turned pale. “Good God!” he said, “I forgot the pool is full of the solution!”
I shivered a little, and dryly advised him to remember better where he had stored the precious liquid.
“In Heaven’s name, why do you keep a small lake of that gruesome stuff here of all places?” I asked.
“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 Geneviève’s boudoir. But the small boy who was unwillingly dawdling through a series of poses for it, today 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.