The following Sunday Philippe came again. This time his mother was
visibly present at the sitting. She served the breakfast, and put
several questions to the dragoon. She then learned that the nephew of
old Madame Hochon, the friend of her mother, played a considerable
part in literature. Philippe and his friend Giroudeau lived among a
circle of journalists, actresses, and booksellers, where they were
regarded in the light of cashiers. Philippe, who had been drinking
kirsch before posing, was loquacious. He boasted that he was about to
become a great man. But when Joseph asked a question as to his
pecuniary resources he was dumb. It so happened that there was no
newspaper on the following day, it being a fete, and to finish the
picture Philippe proposed to sit again on the morrow. Joseph told him
that the Salon was close at hand, and as he did not have the money to
buy two frames for the pictures he wished to exhibit, he was forced to
procure it by finishing a copy of a Rubens which had been ordered by
Elie Magus, the picture-dealer. The original belonged to a wealthy
Swiss banker, who had only lent it for ten days, and the next day was
the last; the sitting must therefore be put off till the following
Sunday.
"Is that it?" asked Philippe, pointing to a picture by Rubens on an
easel.
"Yes," replied Joseph; "it is worth twenty thousand francs. That's
what genius can do. It will take me all to-morrow to get the tones of
the original and make the copy look so old it can't be distinguished
from it.
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