All of a
sudden a thought takes me in the street; I become its prey:
it's like a pretty woman; no use to struggle; I must - dash
it off.'
'I see,' said Dick.
'Yes,' pursued the painter; 'it all comes easily, easily to
me; it is not my business; it's a pleasure. Life is my
business - life - this great city, Paris - Paris after dark -
its lights, its gardens, its odd corners. Aha!' he cried,
'to be young again! The heart is young, but the heels are
leaden. A poor, mean business, to grow old! Nothing remains
but the COUP D'OEIL, the contemplative man's enjoyment, Mr. -
,' and he paused for the name.
'Naseby,' returned Dick.
The other treated him at once to an exciting beverage, and
expatiated on the pleasure of meeting a compatriot in a
foreign land; to hear him, you would have thought they had
encountered in Central Africa. Dick had never found any one
take a fancy to him so readily, nor show it in an easier or
less offensive manner. He seemed tickled with him as an
elderly fellow about town might be tickled by a pleasant and
witty lad; he indicated that he was no precision, but in his
wildest times had never been such a blade as he thought Dick.
Dick protested, but in vain. This manner of carrying an
intimacy at the bayonet's point was Van Tromp's stock-in-
trade. With an older man he insinuated himself; with youth
he imposed himself, and in the same breath imposed an ideal
on his victim, who saw that he must work up to it or lose the
esteem of this old and vicious patron.
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