hospitals where the English soldiers lay. He strove to set down in black and white and colour all that Providence sent him, and when that supply was ended sought about for fresh material. It was a fascinating employment, but it ran away with his money, and he had drawn in advance the hundred and twenty pounds to which he was entitled yearly. 'Now I shall have to work and starve!' thought he, and was addressing himself to this new fate, when a mysterious telegram arrived from Torpenhow in England, which said, 'Come back, quick: you have caught on. Come.'
A large smile overspread his face. 'So soon! that's good hearing,' said he to himself. 'There will be an orgie to-night, I'll stand or fall by my luck. 'Faith, it's time it came!' He deposited half of his funds in the hands of his well-known friends Monsieur and Madame Binat, and ordered himself a Zanzibar dance of the finest. Monsieur Binat was shaking with drink, but Madame smiled sympathetically—
'Monsieur needs a chair, of course, and of course Monsieur will sketch: Monsieur amuses himself strangely.'
Binat raised a blue-white face from a cot in the inner room. 'I understand,' he quavered. 'We all know Monsieur. Monsieur is an artist, as I
