A room of fair size joined the studio, and from its vine-laced window we could look into the houses across the court, and down to the bottom of the court as well. The studio walls were delightfully dirty and low in tone, and were covered with sketches and cartoons in oil and charcoal. The price was eight hundred francs a year, and from the concierge's eloquent catalogue of its charms it seemed a great bargain. The walls settled our fate,—we took the studio.

It was one thing to agree on the price and another to settle the details. Our French was ailing, and the concierge's French was—concierges' French. Bishop found that his pet theory that French should be spoken with the hands, head, and shoulders carried weak spots which a concierge could discover; and then, being somewhat mercurial, he began floundering in a mixture of French and English words and French and American gestures, ending in despair with the observation that the concierge was a d——— fool. At the end of an hour we had learned that we must sign an iron-bound, government-stamped contract, agreeing to occupy the studio for not less than one year, to give six months' notice of our leaving, and to pay three months' rental in advance, besides the taxes for one year on all the doors and windows, and ten francs or more to the concierge. This was all finally settled.

As there was no running water in the rooms (such a luxury being unknown here), we had to supply our needs from a clumsy old iron pump in the court, and employ six flights of stairs in the process.

Then the studio had to be furnished, and there came endless battles with the furniture dealers in the neighborhood, who kept their stock replenished from the goods of bankrupt artists and suspended mÉnages.

These marchands de meubles are a wily race, but Bishop pursued a plan in dealing with them that worked admirably. He would enter a shop and price an article that we wanted, and then throw up his hands in horror and leave the place as though it were haunted with a plague. The dealer would always come tumbling after him and offer him the article for a half or a third of the former price. In this way Bishop bought chairs, tables, a large easel, beds, a studio stove, book-shelves, linen, drapings, water pitchers and buckets, dishes, cooking utensils, and many other things, the cost of the whole being less than one hundred and fifty francs,—and thus we were established. The studio became quite a snug and hospitable retreat, in spite of the alarming arrangement that Bishop adopted, "to help the composition of the room." His favorite cast, the Unknown Woman, occupied the place of honor over his couch, where he could see it the first thing in the morning, when the dawn, stealing through the skylight, brought out those strange and subtle features which he swore inspired him from day to day. My room was filled with brilliant posters by ChÉret and Mucha and Steinlen,—they were too bold and showy for the low tone of Bishop's studio. It all made a pretty picture,—the dizzy posters, the solemn trunks, the books, the bed with its gaudy print coverings, and the little crooked-pane window hung with bright green vines that ran thither from a box in the window of an adjoining apartment. And it was all completed by the bright faces of three pretty seamstresses, who sat sewing every day at their window across the passage.

Under our housekeeping agreement Bishop was made cook, and I chambermaid and water-carrier. It was Bishop's duty to obey the alarm clock at six every morning and light the fire, while I went down for water at the pump, and for milk at the stand beside the court entrance, where fat Madame GiotÉ sold cafÉ-au-lait and lait froid ou chaud, from a sou's worth up. Then, after breakfast, I did the chamber work while Bishop washed the dishes. Bishop could make for breakfast the most delicious coffee and flapjacks and omelette in the whole of Paris. By eight o'clock all was in order; Bishop was smoking his pipe and singing "Down on the Farm" while working on his life study, and I was off to my modelling in clay.

Bishop soon had the hearts of all the shop-keepers in the neighborhood. The baker's dimple-cheeked daughter never worried if the scales hung a little in his favor, at the boucherie he was served with the choicest cuts of meat, and the fried-potato women called him "mon fils" and fried a fresh lot of potatoes for him. Even Madame Tonneau, the marchande de tabac, saw that he had the freshest packages in the shop. Often, when I was returning home at night, I encountered him making cheerily for the studio, bearing bread by the yard, his pockets bulging with other material for dinner. Ah, he was a wonderful cook, and we had marvellous appetites! So famous did he soon become that the models (the lady ones, of course) were eager to dine avec nous; and when they did they helped to set the table, they sewed buttons on our clothes, and they made themselves agreeable and perfectly at home with that charming grace which is so peculiarly French. Ah, those were jolly times!

The court, or, more properly, le passage, on which our window looked was a narrow little thoroughfare leading from the Rue St.-AndrÉ-des-Arts to the Boulevard St.-Germain. It bore little traffic, but was a busy way withal. It had iron-workers' shops, where hot iron was beaten into artistic lamps, grills, and bed-frames; a tinsmith's shop; a blanchisserie, where our shirts were made white and smooth by the pretty blanchisseuses singing all day over their work; a wine-cellar, whose barrels were eternally blocking one end of the passage; an embossed picture-card factory, where twoscore women, with little hammers and steel dies, beat pictures into cards; a furniture shop, where everything old and artistic was sold, the HÔtel du Passage, and a bookbinder's shop.

Each of the eight buildings facing the passage was ruled by a formidable concierge, who had her dark little living apartments near the entrances. These are the despots of the court, and their function is to make life miserable for their lodgers. When they are not doing that they are eternally scrubbing and polishing. They are all married. M. MayÉ, le mari de notre concierge, is a tailor. He sits at the window and mends and sews all day long, or acts as concierge when his wife is away. The husband of the concierge next door is a sergeant de ville at night, but in the early mornings as, in a soiled blouse, he empties ash-cans, he looks very unlike the personage dressed at night in a neat blue uniform and wearing a short sword Another concierge's husband fait des courses—runs errands—for sufficient pay.

Should you fail to clean your boots on the mat, and thus soil the glossy stairs, have a care!—a concierge's tongue has inherited the warlike characteristics of the Caesars. Rugs and carpets must not be shaken out of the windows after nine o'clock. Ashes and other refuse must be thrown into the big bin of the house not later than seven. Sharp at eleven in the evening the lights are extinguished and the doors locked for the night; and then all revelry must immediately cease. Should you arrive en retard,—that is, after eleven,—you must ring the bell violently until the despot, generally after listening for an hour to the bell, unlocks the catch from her couch. Then when you close the door and pass her lodge you must call out your name. If you are out often or till very late, be prepared for a lecture on the crime of breaking the rest of hard-working concierges. After the day's work the concierges draw their chairs out into the court and gossip about their tenants. The nearer the roof the lodger the less the respect he commands. Would he not live on a lower floor if he were able? And then, the top floor gives small tips!

It is noticeable that the entresol and premiers Étages are clean and highly polished, and that the cleanliness and polish diminish steadily toward the top, where they almost disappear. Ah, les concierges! But what would Paris be without them?

Directly beneath us an elderly couple have apartments. Every morning at five the old gentleman starts French oaths rattling through the court by beating his rugs out of his window. At six he rouses the ire of a widow below him by watering his plants and incidentally drenching her bird- cages. Not long ago she rose in violent rebellion, and he hurled a flower pot at her protruding head. It smashed on her window-sill; she screamed "Murder!" and the whole court was in an uproar. The concierges and the old gentleman's pacific wife finally restored order—till the next morning.

Next, to my room are an elderly lady and her sweet, sad-faced daughter. They are very quiet and dignified, and rarely fraternize with their neighbors. It is their vine that creeps over to my window, and it is carefully tended by the daughter. And all the doves and sparrows of the court come regularly to eat out of her hand, and a lively chatter they have over it. The ladies are the widow and daughter of a once prosperous stock-broker on the Bourse, whom an unlucky turn of the wheel drove to poverty and suicide.

The three seamstresses over the way are the sunshine of the court. They are not so busy sewing and singing but that they find time to send arch glances toward our window, and their blushes and smiles when Bishop sends them sketches of them that he has made from memory are more than remunerative.

A young Scotch student from Glasgow, named Cameron, has a studio adjoining ours. He is a fine, jovial fellow, and we usually assist him to dispose of his excellent brew of tea at five o'clock. Every Thursday evening there was given a musical chez lui, in which Bishop and I assisted with mandolin and guitar, while Cameron played the flute. For these occasions Cameron donned his breeks and kilt, and danced the sword-dance round two table-knives crossed. The American songs strike him as being strange and incomprehensible. He cannot understand the negro dialect, and wonders if America is filled with negroes and cotton plantations; but he is always delighted with Bishop's "Down on the Farm."

Life begins at five o'clock in our court. The old gentleman beats his rugs, the milk-bottles rattle, the bread-carts rumble, Madame GiotÉ opens her milkstand, and the concierges drag the ash-cans out into the court, where a drove of rag-pickers fall upon them. These gleaners are a queer lot. Individuals and families pursue the quest, each with a distinct purpose. One will seek nothing but bones, glass, and crockery; another sifts the ashes for coal; another takes only paper and rags; another old shoes and hats; and so on, from can to can, none interfering with any of the others. The dogs are the first at the bins. They are regularly organized in working squads, travelling in fours and fives. They are quite adept at digging through the refuse for food, and they rarely quarrel; and they never leave one bin for another until they have searched it thoroughly.

The swish of water and a coarse brush broom announces the big, strong woman who sweeps the gutters of the Rue St.-AndrÉ-des-Arts. With broad sweeps of the broom she spreads the water over half the street and back into the gutter, making the worn yellow stones shine. She is coarsely clad and wears black sabots; and God knows how she can swear when the gleaners scatter the refuse into the gutter!

The long wail of the fish-and-mussel woman, "J'ai des beaux maquereaux, des moules, poissons À frire, À frire!" as she pushes her cart, means seven o'clock.

The day now really begins. Water-pails are clanging and sabots are clicking on the stones. The wine people set up a rumble by cleaning their casks with chains and water. The anvils of the iron-workers are ringing, and there comes the tink-tink-tink of the little hammers in the embossed-picture factory. The lumbering garbage-cart arrives to bear away the ash-bins, the lead-horse shaking his head to ring the bell on his neck in announcement of the approach. Street-venders and hawkers of various comestibles, each with his or her quaint musical cry, come in numbers. "J'ai des beaux choux-fleurs! O, comme ils sont beaux!" The fruit- and potato-women come after, and then the chair-menders. These market-women are early risers. They are at the great Halles Centrales at four o'clock to bargain for their wares; and besides good lungs they have a marvellous shrewdness, born of long dealings with French housewives.

Always near eight may be heard, "Du mouron pour les petits oiseaux!" and all the birds in the court, familiar with the cry, pipe up for their chickweed. "VoilÀ le bon fromage À la crÈme pour trois sous!" cries a keen-faced little woman, her three-wheeled cart loaded with cream cheeses; and she gives a soup-plate full of them, with cream poured generously over, and as she pockets the money says, "VoilÀ! ce que c'est bon avec des confitures!" Cream cheeses and prayer! On Sunday mornings during the spring and summer the goat's-milk vender, blowing a reed-pipe, invades the passage with his living milk-cans,—a flock of eight hairy goats that know the route as well as he, and they are always willing to be milked when a customer offers a bowl. The tripe-man with his wares and bell is the last of the food-sellers of the day. The window-glass repairer, "Vitrier!" passes at nine, and then the beggars and strolling musicians and singers put in an appearance. In the afternoon the old-clo' man comes hobbling under his load of cast-off clothes, crying, "Marchand d'habits!" of which you can catch only "'Chand d'habits!" and the barrel-buyer, "Marchand de tonneaux!" The most musical of them all is the porcelain-mender, who cries, "Voici le raccommodeur de porcelaines, faÏence, cristal, poseur de robinets!" and then plays a fragment of a hunting-song.

The beggars and musicians also have regular routes and fixed hours. Cold and stormy days are welcomed by them, for then pity lends activity to- sous. A piratical old beggar has his stand near the entrance to the court, where he kneels on the stones, his faithful mongrel dog beside him. He occasionally poses for the artists when times are dull, but he prefers begging,—it is easier and more remunerative. Three times a week we are treated to some really good singing by a blind old man, evidently an artist in his day. When the familiar sound of his guitar is heard all noises in the passage cease, and all windows are opened to hear. He sings arias from the operas. His little old wife gathers up the sous that ring on the flags. Sometimes a strolling troupe of two actors and three musicians makes its appearance, and invariably plays to a full house. There are droves of sham singers who do not sing at all, but give mournful howls and tell their woes to deaf windows. One of them, a tattered woman with two babies, refused to pose for Bishop, although he offered her five francs for the afternoon.

Her babies never grow older or bigger as the years pass.

We all know when anybody in the passage is going to take a bath. There are no bath-tubs in these old houses, but that difficulty is surmounted by a bathing establishment on the Boulevard St.-Michel. It sends around a cart bearing a tank of hot water and a zinc tub. The man who pulls the cart carries the tub to the room, and fills it by carrying up the water in buckets. Then he remains below until the bath is finished, to regain his tub and collect a franc.

Since we have been here the court entrance has been once draped in mourning. At the head of the casket of old Madame Courtoise, who lived across the way, stood a stately crucifix, and candles burned, and there were mourners and yellow bead wreaths. A quiet sadness sat upon the court, and the people spoke in whispers only.

And there have been two weddings,—one at the blanchisserie, where the master's daughter was married to a young mechanic from the iron shop. There were glorious times at the laundry that night, for the whole court was present. It was four in the morning when the party broke up, and then our shirts were two days late.

Thus ran the first months of the four years of our student life in Paris; in its domestic aspects it was typical of all that followed. We soon became members of the American Art Association, and gradually made friends in charming French homes. Then there was the strange Bohemian life lying outside as well as within the students' pale, and into the spirit of it all we found our way. It is to the Bohemian, not the social, life of Paris that these papers are devoted—a life both picturesque and pathetic, filled with the oddest contrasts and incongruities, with much suffering but more content, and spectacular and fascinating in all its phases. No one can have seen and known Paris without a study of this its living, struggling artistic side, so strange, so remote from the commonplace world surging and roaring unheeded about it.

On New Year's Day we had an overwhelming number of callers. First came the concierge, who cleaned our door-knob and wished us a prosperous and bonne annÉe. She got ten francs,—we did not know what was coming. The chic little blanchisseuse called next with our linen. That meant two francs. Then came in succession two telegraph boys, the facteur, or postman, who presented us with a cheap calendar, and another postman, who delivers only second-class mail. They got a franc each. Then the marchand de charbon's boy called with a clean face and received fifty centimes, and everybody else with whom we had had dealings; and our offerings had a steadily diminishing value.

We could well bear all this, however, in view of the great day, but a week old, when we had celebrated Christmas. Bishop prepared a dinner fit for a king, giving the greater part of his time for a week to preparations for the great event. Besides a great many French dishes, we had turkey and goose, cooked for us at the rÔtisserie near by, and soup, oysters, American pastries, and a big, blazing plum-pudding. We and our guests (there were eight in all) donned full dress for the occasion, and a bonne, hired for the evening, brought on the surprises one after another. But why should not it have been a glorious evening high up among the chimney-pots of old Paris? for did we not drink to the loved ones in a distant land, and were not our guests the prettiest among the pretty toilers of our court?