“Tartarin of Tarascon!”
The painter, who was standing on a scaffolding within, stretched out half of his body clad in his working-blouse, and holding his palette in his hand.
“My pupil will come down and open the door for you, gentlemen,” he said in a respectful tone.
“I was sure of it; of course,” said Tartarin to himself, “I have only to mention my name.”
For all that, he had the good taste to fall into line and modestly enter the chapel behind the others.
The painter, a splendid fellow, with a magnificent golden head of an artist of the Renaissance, received his visitors on the wooden staircase which led to the temporary scaffolding from which the mural paintings were being done. All the frescos, representing scenes from Tell’s life, were complete, except the one in which the scene of the apple at Altorf was to be shown. Upon that the painter was now working....
“I find it all very characteristically done,” said the great Astier-Réhu.
And Schwanthaler, folding his arms, recited two of Schiller’s verses, half of which was lost in his beard. Then the ladies delivered their opinions, and for some minutes one would have thought oneself in a confectioner’s shop. “Beautiful!” they cried. “Lovely! Exquisite! Delicious!”
Suddenly came a voice, tearing the silence like a trumpet’s blare:
“Badly shouldered, that blunderbuss, I tell you! He never held it in that way!”