“That’s right!” he observed, familiarly.
“What say you to a glass of something, and a chat?”
“Say?” he repeated, with a very broad grin, “why, yes, to be sure!”
The tumbler, with his tools done up in a carpet-bag closed at the mouth with a bit of rope, and your humble servant were speedily seated in a neighbouring wine-shop.
“What do you prefer to drink?” I inquired.
“Cure-a-sore,” he modestly answered.
The epicure! Quality and not quantity was evidently his taste; a sign of, at least, a sober fellow.
“You find yourself tolerably well off in Paris?”
“I should think I did,” he answered, smacking his lips, “for I wos a wagabon in London; but here I am an artiste!”
“A distinction only in name, I suspect.”