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A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL.
51

pursued his studies and intersperses this monologue with moral reflections.

"Be careful how you use your bitumen. Why are you painting without a hand-rest? Where the devil are my hand-rests, any way? I shall never find my hand-rests. I ought to have an apprentice to bring me my rest. One is never so ill served as when he serves himself. Ah! you call that a hand-rest, do you? Why don't you take the axle of a cart and have done with it? There is a lighted candle, very well; but what does your precious candle serve to illuminate? Why don't you put in some lights, then? You dare not, you are afraid. There, there, a little bit more. Ah! now your candle lights things up. Don't be too free with the bitumen. A little vermilion here. Come, come; where is my vermilion? Who has taken my vermilion? Tell me, George," he says to the model, "have you been eating my vermilion? I must have some vermilion. There is green, but that is not the same thing. If I had an apprentice he would hunt for my vermillion for me. Really and truly, I must have an apprentice. Economy is the mother of all the vices. Ah! here is ray vermilion! I wonder who the devil conceived the idea of putting it into a helmet? Nothing is ever in its place here, everything is always topsy-turvy. Who the devil took it in his head to put my vermilion in a helmet? The idea of looking for it in a helmet; I know very well that I placed it in a riding-boot. Come," says he, still talking to himself, "perhaps you call that an eye; if you were to look at the model you would not disgrace yourself with such idiotic blunders. What does that great imbecile eye mean? Bring