"Who is Monsieur Dupétrain?" inquired Tobie.
"Don't you know Dupétrain? Well, upon my word! All Paris knows him. He's a very good fellow—who is constantly having wonderful adventures. He's a frantic adept of magnetism. He'll put you to sleep, and make you walk in your sleep, if you like. Come, messieurs; come, I say!"
Three young men, walking arm in arm, halted in front of Albert and his companions. They greeted one another with smiles, exchanging handshakes and puffs of tobacco smoke.
The new-comers were: first, Mouillot, head clerk in a business house; a tall, fair-haired, red-cheeked youth, with an amiable, jovial face, whose appearance pointed him out at once as a bon vivant.
Next, Balivan, portrait painter; a typical artist's face, with unusual features, which could in all sincerity be called ugly, and a bearing in harmony with his features. He held himself sidewise, with his head sunk on one shoulder; he had a jerky walk, one leg always lagging behind; and he waved his arms about in space, so that at a distance they resembled the wings of a windmill. But, with all that, his face had much character and expression; his forehead was that of a man who thinks, and in his eyes there shone the fire of intelligence, which, in a man, excuses ugliness and often triumphs over beauty.
Balivan had genuine artistic talent, which is never a disadvantage; but he was extremely lazy, a not infrequent trait among artists; in addition, he was very heedless, always making blunders, and extraordinarily absent-minded.
The third of the party was he whom Célestin called Dupétrain. He was a man between thirty and forty, with a square, bony face, and yellow skin, extremely ugly at first sight, and even more so when examined closely. His broad nose lay flat on his cheeks, like a negro's; his enormous mouth became a veritable cavern when he spoke, because, in order to give greater weight to his words, he articulated every syllable with a painstaking care that was very disagreeable to his hearers. His head was adorned with a forest of hair, which he always wore very long, and which gave him some resemblance to a lion; his small, sunken, glassy eyes seemed to be engaged in a constant effort to fascinate or at least to magnetize you. Such was the individual who answered to the name of Dupétrain.
"Ah! here's Pigeonnier!" exclaimed Mouillot, bringing his hand down on the corpulent youth's shoulder. "Does he dine with us?"
"Yes, messieurs; I am to have that pleasure."
"Famous! the man we can never get—who's always engaged."