"Ah, ha! Good-even, Corporal Victor!"
Cecil, at the words, crossed the sill and entered.
"Have you sold any?" he asked. There was a slight constraint and
hesitation in the words, as of one who can never fairly bend his spirit
to the yoke of barter.
The little, hideous, wrinkled, dwarf-like creature, a trader in
curiosities, grinned with a certain gratification in disappointing this
lithe-limbed, handsome Chasseur.
"Not one. The toys don't take. Daggers now, or anything made out of
spent balls, or flissas one can tell an Arab story about, go off like
wild-fire; but your ivory bagatelles are no sort of use, M. le Caporal."
"Very well--no matter," said Cecil simply, as he paused a moment before
some delicate little statuettes and carvings--miniature things, carved
out of a piece of ivory, or a block of marble the size of a horse's
hoof, such as could be picked up in dry river channels or broken off
stray boulders; slender crucifixes, wreathes of foliage, branches of
wild fig, figures of Arabs and Moors, dainty heads of dancing-girls, and
tiny chargers fretting like Bucephalus. They were perfectly conceived
and executed. He had always had a gift that way, though, in common with
all his gifts, he had utterly neglected all culture of it, until, cast
adrift on the world, and forced to do something to maintain himself, he
had watched the skill of the French soldiers at all such expedients to
gain a few coins, and had solaced many a dreary hour in barracks and
under canvas with the toy-sculpture, till he had attained a singular
art at it.
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