The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
THE RAPIN
BY
HENRY DE VERE STACPOOLE
Author of “Pierrot”
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1899
This book is not for sale outside of the United Statesand Canada.
Copyright, 1899,
BY
HENRY HOLT & CO.
THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
RAHWAY, N. J.
FOREWORD.
In the rooms of my friend Otto Struve there hangs a parrot cagecontaining a somewhat dejected-looking lark. It was given to him byGustave Garnier, the man who took the Prix de Rome last year—or wasit the year before?—and whose picture of a girl was bought by thestate for I do not know how many thousand francs before it had hung afortnight in the Salon. A story connects the painter and the pictureand the bird—a story whose name ought to have been “Célestin” but forthat eternal unfitness of things which makes the comedy of real life aninverted image of the comedy of romance and demands for the story ofCélestin the title of “Toto,” or, if it please you better, “The Rapin.”
H. de V. S.
CONTENTS.
| Part I. | ||
|---|---|---|
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I. | Toto | 1 |
| II. | The Good Advice of M. de Nani | 20 |
| III. | The Fag End of a Night and the Beginning ofa Morning | 35 |
| IV. | The Poetry of Hats | 45 |
| V. | Gaillard the Comforter | 62 |
| VI. | Fanfoullard, Mirmillard, and Papillard | 76 |
| Part II. | ||
| I. | It Is Not Always May | 88 |