It was a cosy place, with its comfortable chairs, its cheerful lamps, and
its friendly open fire of seasoned olive-wood. To make everything
perfect, there was a muffled booming of the surf outside. After the
second Scotch and much lazy and contented chat, Smith said:
'Now we are properly primed--I to tell a curious history and you to
listen to it. It has been a secret for many years--a secret between me
and three others; but I am going to break the seal now. Are you
comfortable?'
'Perfectly. Go on.'
Here follows what he told me:
'A long time ago I was a young artist--a very young artist, in fact--and
I wandered about the country parts of France, sketching here and
sketching there, and was presently joined by a couple of darling young
Frenchmen who were at the same kind of thing that I was doing. We were
as happy as we were poor, or as poor as we were happy--phrase it to suit
yourself. Claude Frere and Carl Boulanger--these are the names of those
boys; dear, dear fellows, and the sunniest spirits that ever laughed at
poverty and had a noble good time in all weathers.
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