The porcelain-merchant warmly applauded the resolution announced by Eusebe.
“But what will you do?” he inquired of the provincial.
Eusebe confessed that he would have some difficulty in answering that question. Lansade resumed:—
“You had better reflect. Spend a few days in diverting your mind with the sights of Paris. Endeavor to make acquaintances. On my part, I will look about for something that may be agreeable to you.”
A young man, with a smiling countenance, at this moment entered the store, and exclaimed,—
“Good-morning, Monsieur Lansade! Here are your two vases. How do you like them? Are they sufficiently finished?”
“Very good, indeed,” replied Lansade, after carefully examining the paintings on the vases, which were ornamented in the old style. “Very good, Monsieur Buck. When you choose to take pains, you do your work better than anybody else. Here are twenty-five francs. Write me a receipt.”
“A pound sterling. The price is certainly not excessive, Monsieur Lansade; and yet you insist upon a receipt to complete the transaction. Well, give me pen and paper. If ever I become a celebrated painter,—which I certainly shall,—you will have an autograph which will be worth its weight in gold.”
“So much the better for us both, Monsieur Buck.”
Paul Buck was an excellent and worthy young man, who dreamed of glory. The son of a German painter on porcelain, he thoroughly understood that decorative art, and might have earned the means of living handsomely if he had only been industrious. Unhappily, he regarded his profession with contempt. He aspired to be a great painter, and only decorated vases in order to procure the necessaries of life. Lansade, who held Paul in high esteem on account of his frankness and honesty of disposition, introduced him to Eusebe.