“A beggar,” I said to Lachaume; “poor devil!”
“Ah! old Pochard—yes, poor devil, and once one of the handsomest men in Paris.”
“What wrecked him?” I asked.
“What I’m drinking now, mon ami.”
“Absinthe?”
“Yes—absinthe! He looks older than I do, does he not?” continued Lachaume, lighting a fresh cigarette, “and yet I’m twenty years his senior. You see, I sip mine—he drank his by the goblet,” and my friend leaned forward and poured the contents of the carafe in a tiny trickling stream over the sugar lying in its perforated spoon.
BOY MODEL
“Ah! those were great days when Pochard was the life of the Bullier,” he went on; “I remember the night he won ten thousand francs from the Russian. It didn’t last long; Camille Leroux had her share of it—nothing ever lasted long with Camille. He was once courrier to an Austrian Baron, I remember. The old fellow used to frequent the Quarter in summer, years ago—it was his hobby. Pochard was a great favorite in those days, and the Baron liked to go about in the Quarter with him, and of course Pochard was in his glory. He would persuade the old nobleman to prolong his vacation here. Once the Baron stayed through the winter and fell ill, and a little couturière in the rue de Rennes, whom the old fellow fell in love with, nursed him. He
died the summer following, at Vienna, and left her quite a little property near Amiens. He was a good old Baron, a charitable old fellow among the needy, and a good bohemian besides; and he did much for Pochard, but he could not keep him sober!”