"They don't understand that sort of thing here." And I tried to bundle him out.
"Tell him first what we think of him," he objected.

"Let me tell him what he looks in the eyes of a pure-minded American" "Leave that to me," said I, thrusting Pinkerton clear through the door.
"Qu'est-ce qu'il a ?"[1] inquired the student.
[1] "What's the matter with him ?" "Monsieur se sent mal au coeur d'avoir trop regarde votre croute,"[2] said I, and made my escape, scarce with dignity, at Pinkerton's heels.
[2] "The gentleman is sick at his stomach from having looked too long at your daub." "What did you say to him ?" he asked.
"The only thing that he could feel," was my reply.
After this scene, the freedom with which I had ejected my new acquaintance, and the precipitation with which I had followed him, the least I could do was to propose luncheon.

I have forgot the name of the place to which I led him, nothing loath; it was on the far side of the Luxembourg at least, with a garden behind, where we were speedily set face to face at table, and began to dig into each other's history and character, like terriers after rabbits, according to the approved fashion of youth.
Pinkerton's parents were from the old country; there too, I incidentally gathered, he had himself been born, though it was a circumstance he seemed prone to forget.

Whether he had run away, or his father had turned him out, I never fathomed; but about the age of twelve, he was thrown upon his own resources.

A travelling tin-type photographer picked him up, like a haw out of a hedgerow, on a wayside in New Jersey; took a fancy to the urchin; carried him on with him in his wandering life; taught him all he knew himself--to take tin-types (as well as I can make out) and doubt the Scriptures; and died at last in Ohio at the corner of a road.