His French name gave a kind of
piquancy to his audacity; he was unusual; he was striking. It was right
for Polchester to have an artist and to stick him up in the very middle of
the town as an emblem of taste and culture. Soon, however, he began to
decline. It was whispered that he drank, that his morals were "only what
you'd expect of an artist," and that he was really "too queer about the
Cathedral." One day he told Miss Dobell that the amount that she knew
about literature would go inside a very small pea, and he was certainly
"the worse for liquor" at one of Mrs. Combermere's tea-parties. He did
not, however, give them time to drop him; he dropped himself, gave up his
Orange Street studio, lived, no one knew where, neglected his appearance,
and drank quite freely whenever he could get anything to drink. He now cut
everybody, rather than allowed himself to be cut.
He was in the Cathedral as often as ever, and Lawrence and Cobbett, the
Vergers, longed to have an excuse for expelling him, but he always behaved
himself there and was in nobody's way. He was finally regarded as "quite
mad," and was seen to talk aloud to himself as he walked about the
streets.
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