from Muskegon."

"Of sculpture?" he cried, as though that would have been his last

conjecture. "Mine is James Pinkerton; I am delighted to have the

pleasure of your acquaintance."

"Pinkerton!" it was now my turn to exclaim. "Are you Broken-Stool

Pinkerton?"

He admitted his identity with a laugh of boyish delight; and indeed any

young man in the quarter might have been proud to own a sobriquet thus

gallantly acquired.

In order to explain the name, I must here digress into a chapter of

the history of manners in the nineteenth century, very well worth

commemoration for its own sake. In some of the studios at that date,

the hazing of new pupils was both barbarous and obscene. Two incidents,

following one on the heels of the other tended to produce an advance in

civilization by the means (as so commonly happens) of a passing appeal

to savage standards. The first was the arrival of a little gentleman

from Armenia. He had a fez upon his head and (what nobody counted on) a

dagger in his pocket. The hazing was set about in the customary style,

and, perhaps in virtue of the victim's head-gear, even more boisterously

than usual. He bore it at first with an inviting patience; but upon one

of the students proceeding to an unpardonable freedom, plucked out

his knife and suddenly plunged it in the belly of the jester. This

gentleman, I am pleased to say, passed months upon a bed of sickness,

before he was in a position to resume his studies. The second incident

was that which had earned Pinkerton his reputation. In a crowded studio,

while some very filthy brutalities were being practised on a trembling

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