Another character in the studio is le jeune Siffert, only twenty-three, and one of the cleverest of the coming French painters. Recently he nearly won the Prix de Rome. His specialty is the imitation of the cries of domestic fowls and animals, and of street venders. Gérôme calls him "mon fils," and constantly implores him to be serious. I don't see why.
Then there is Fiola, a young giant from Brittany, with a wonderful facility at drawing. He will suddenly break into a roar, and for an hour sing one verse of a Brittany chant, driving the other students mad.
Fournier is a little curly-headed fellow from the south, near Valence, and wears corduroy trousers tucked into top-boots. His greatest delight is in plaguing the nouveaux. His favorite joke, if the day is dark, is to send a nouveau to the different ateliers of the Ecole in search of "le grand réflecteur." The nouveau, thinking that it is a device for increasing the light, starts out bravely, and presently returns with a large, heavy box, which, upon its being opened, is found to be filled with bricks. Then Fournier is happy.
Taton is the butt of the atelier. He is an ingénu, and falls into any trap set for him. Whenever anything is missing, all pounce upon Taton, and he is very unhappy.
Haidor, the Turk, suspicious and sullen, also is a butt. Caricatures of him abundantly adorn the walls, together with the Turkish crescent, and Turkish ladies executing the danse du ventre.
Caricatures of all kinds cover the walls of the atelier, and some are magnificent, being spared the vandalism that spares nothing else. One, especially good, represents Kenyon Cox, who studied here.
W———, the student from Nebraska, created a sensation by appearing one day in the full regalia of a cowboy, including two immense revolvers, a knife, and a lariat depending from his belt. With the lariat he astonished and dismayed the dodging Frenchmen by lassoing them at will, though they exercised their greatest running and dodging agility to escape. They wanted to know if all Americans went about thus heeled in America.