made to perform, he was expected to show off, and he much preferred to get off in a dark corner and talk with a nonentity about a piece of Majolica, or with a pretty woman about something else. He had his public conversation by heart—all his good stories about Hugo and Renan and Maupassant—even to the tone of his voice, even to the exact point at which he pulled out his handkerchief and wiped a histrionic tear from his eye. His public conversation he performed as a matter of duty, and he performed a little as one plays old records for new friends. He was bored, too, by nature, by landscape—except when it was framed and hung inside four walls.
The things which frightened and dismayed him were illness and death. On one occasion M. Brousson was so indiscreet as to swoon in the Master's presence. He took that up seriously and sharply. He wished to know at once whether the young man did that sort of thing often. He explained that he should not like him so well—not nearly so well—if he did. He really did not care for sick people in his neighborhood. Then, again, on another occasion, the young man from the country, thinking to gratify the Master's love of glory, spoiled a visit to the Pantheon by intimating that Anatole France would be the next great man of letters to repose there.
This joyous paganism of Anatole France is, of course, an attractive religion for people who are well and happy and prosperous. If one is poor or wretched or ill, it is less consolatory. But, as M. Brousson exhibits him, this great gambler who staked all he had on the turns of this world enjoyed an almost uninterrupted run of good luck. He was one of those thoroughly prosperous worldlings who almost per-
