He would sit (or stand or walk), his eye craving admiration
from our faces; his tongue wagging about himself; his early hardships,
his first success, his habits of work, his troubles with his wife, his
_liaison_ with Lady Blank, his tastes in fruits and wines, his
handwriting, his very teeth and boots. He passed his life in a sort of
trance, an ecstacy of self-absorption; he had fallen in love with his
own conception of himself, like a metaphysical Narcissus. This
idiosyncrasy was the means of defeating various conspiracies, in which
Chalks, of course, was the prime mover, calculated to impose upon his
credulity, and send him back to London loaded down with
misinformation.
'His cheek, by Christopher!' cried Chalks. 'Live in the Quarter for a
fortnight, keep his eyes and ears shut, talk perpetually of Davis
Blake, and read nothing but his own works, and then go home and write
a book about it. _I'll_ quarter him!'
But Chalks counted without his man. That Monsieur Bullier, the founder
of the Closerie des Lilas, was also Professor of Moral Philosophy in
the College de France; that the word _etudiante_ (for Blake had only a
tourist's smattering of French) should literally be translated
_student_, and that the young ladies who bore it as a name were indeed
pursuing rigorous courses of study at the Sorbonne; that it was
obligatory upon a freshman (_nouveau_) in the Quarter to shave his
head and wear wooden shoes for the first month after his
matriculation--from these and kindred superstitions Blake was saved by
his grand talent for never paying attention.
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