Chapter II

“Don’t,” said Clifford, “pat me on the back and tell me to keep my shirt on!”

“Nonsense!” said Elliott, “you are making a mountain out of a mole-hill!”

“And your language,” said Selby, “is not exactly—”

“Oh, isn’t it! Now you listen to me; the Café des Écoles is no boudoir, and if a man can’t express his views here then I’m a fossil.”

Rowden looked vaguely uneasy and Braith studied Clifford over his pipe.

“The Quarter,” continued Clifford, “is going to the devil; do you deny it?”

“Yes,” said Elliott cheerfully.

“That makes no difference—keep cool, Elliott, I know you only said it for argument, but it isn’t so—”

“Messieurs, you must make less noise,” said the proprietor, hurrying over from the desk.

“Stop pounding on the table and yelling,” said Clifford to Carroll.

“If you don’t,” observed Elliott, “the sergot will come back and take our names again—”

“For the last time too, and Elliott’s already got three, so he’ll go to the cooler and devil a sou will I go bail,” growled Clifford; “now listen to me, you fellows, if you want to know why the Quarter is going to the bow-wows. Just look at the crop of this year’s men! Are we going to put up with McCloud. He threw the proprietor of the Café des Arts out of doors and ran the Café himself at ruinous rates until the proprietor came back with the police. I paid his fine.”

“Well,” said Elliott, “McCloud is certainly cocky for a nouveau!”

“Cocky? Well rather. Because he’s a sort of infant Hercules and has played on the Australian team is no reason why he should split all the tables with his fist and do cheap feats of strength, and grab a cab by the hind wheels and hold it with the cabby yelling like a demon and everybody laughing at me—”

“You!”

“I was in the cab; it was on the Boulevard Montparnasse—”

“And you were going—” began Elliott.

“Never mind where I was going,” said Clifford with dignity, “the fact remains that I was inside. It was lucky for McCloud that I was, for when a policeman nipped his budding humour my bail came in very handy.”

“And is that,” inquired Braith suavely, “the ground for your assertion that the Quarter is doomed?”

“Isn’t it enough?” demanded Clifford;—“a nouveau taking liberties,—making me ridiculous before the whole Montparnasse Quarter,—who know me—every one of them,—and to crown all, being with a lady—”

“Oh!” said Elliott tenderly. Osborne smirked and whistled the devil’s quadrille, Elliott and Thaxton played phantom trombones with enervating effect and Carroll beat madly upon a bottle.

Clifford became redder and redder. His unrequited affection for that wonderful little creature, the new Bullier star, was a topic for mirth and gentle jest throughout the Latin Quarter. They had recently parted, friends,—it being understood that she liked him, but hardly cared to pin her affections to a man who sat helpless in a cab while somebody held the hind wheels and the boulevard laughed. It was putting it plainly perhaps, but it did no harm, and Clifford was very careful to keep it to himself.

“You fellows,” observed Clifford scornfully, “had better stop those monkey shines. Put down that bottle, Carroll, or I’ll take it away. You’ll be trying to stuff it in your mouth next. Bite on the cork, it’s better for teething.”

This cruel thrust at the very recent advent of Carroll to full-fledged honours in the studio had its effect.

“I know,” continued Clifford, “that you all think I’m blighted, but you’re all mistaken. I’m sure you will see that I am right about these new men when I tell you what happened at the studio this morning. I sat down in a front place and waited for the roll-call, and, before my name was called, a thing—a nouveau took the place himself.”

“What!” cried the others incredulously.

“It’s true,” continued Clifford, “this baby—this nouveau violated all precedent, and, because his name came before mine on the list, he actually had the impudence to throw me down!”

The others looked thoughtful.

“That is going too far,” observed Elliott gravely, “we must discipline these young gentlemen.”

“There are two or three,” said Thaxton, “who seem worse than the rest, for instance, young Garland—”

“Seems to me that was the creature’s name who took my place,” interrupted Clifford.

“It couldn’t be—he’s a decent fellow and makes the fire when he’s told to,” said Selby.

“Perhaps he didn’t know you were an old man,” suggested Elliott.

“Probably not,” said Carroll, who was still smarting from the teething taunt, “Clifford hasn’t been twice in the studio since the nouveaux came.”

Elliott took out a note-book and wrote down Garland’s name.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” he said, “but there is another little wretch who ought to have an example made of him at once.”

“Who?” asked Clifford.

“I believe his name is Fradley,” replied Elliott lighting a cigar.

“Then we’ll fix Fradley,” muttered Clifford. “Who cares for a game of billiards?”