Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/108

row: so, if you please, we will begin at once. One good sitting will help us along some way.”

“But it will soon be night, and you can’t paint by candle-light.”

“My room is arranged so that we can work at all hours in it. If you will take off your coat, and put yourself in position, we will commence.”

“Take off my coat! What for?”

“You told me that you intended this portrait for your family.”

“Certainly.”

“Well, then, you ought to be represented in your athome dress—in your dressing-gown. It is the custom to be so.”

“But I haven’t any dressing gown here.”

“But I have. The case is provided for,” quoth Schaunard, presenting to his sitter a very ragged garment, so ornamented with paint-marks that the honest provincial hesitated about getting into it.

“A very odd dress,” said he.

“And very valuable. A Turkish vizier gave it to Horace Vernet, and he gave it to me when he had done with it. I am a pupil of his.”

“Are you a pupil of Vernet’s?”

“I am proud to be,” said the artist. “Wretch that I am!” he muttered to himself, “I deny my gods and masters!”

“You have reason to be proud, my young friend,” replied the delegate donning the dressing-gown with the illustrious origin.

“Hang up Monsieur Blancheron’s coat in the wardrobe,” said Schaunard to his friend, with a significant wink.

“Ain’t he too good?” whispered Marcel as he pounced