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150 and get blind-drunk on absinthe. Then he would be ashamed and keep out of the way for some days. Besides, the loans that he asked for were always ridiculously small in amount. I was not a little astonished, therefore, on returning to my house one afternoon to find a letter from him in which he requested a loan of no less a sum than two hundred francs. I had not seen anything of him for six months, and he told me a long story how he had been struggling against his vice during those six months, that he had quit drinking, that he had tried to work, that his strength had given out, that his wife was ill—he was living with his cantinière still; in a word, one of those pitiful begging letters that it makes your heart ache to receive."

"When you believe them," I insinuated, "for one receives so many communications of that description during ten years of life in Paris, and out of the whole lot there won't be two that have a word of truth in them."

"It is better to take the chance of being duped in all the other cases than to allow those two to pass unheeded," said the painter. "Moreover, I had no reason to question Ladrat's truthfulness at the time. It so happened that I had received the fifteen hundred francs for the Ophelia that very day. I have always been very exact in money matters. I was not in debt to the extent of a centime and I had a sum about equivalent to the amount requested lying in my drawer. My studio was equipped and my wardrobe supplied for several years to come. I remember taking mental account of my financial position as I was brushing my coat to go out to one of my first