The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-06-13
<<TNHE pair of put-crackers" was the happy though irreverent
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 the happy though irreverent
 name that the boulevard idlers fastened on the two friends Pons and Schmucke-both equally ugly, equally poor, equally gifted with genius and equally simple in the ways of the world, despite the hard lessons that the world had been administer ing to them constantly.
 Pons was a piece of Empire furni- ture. In the middle of the nineteenth century he wore the habiliments of the year 1SO6.~ Above these carieatures of garments, and under a shocking silk hat he carried a face that proclaimed pathetically that no woman could ever have loved it's owner, huge Don Quixote nose stood out between two large, long ears. His other features were more like spherical knobs than features. But the ugliness of this poor old man did not cause one to smile, for from that face peered two sad, gray eyes that appealed for pity with their intense melancholy.
 M. Sylvain Pons was no less than the same M Pons whose cantata had car rled off the laurels at the Institute, and whose operas and ballads had en- tranced the world in 1915 and 1S16. Now, in his sixties, he was conductor of an orchestra in boulevard theatre. and thanks to his ugliness he held the post also of music master in several boarding schools for young ladies.
 Poor Pons had gone out of fashion. This man, this true artist, who loved beauty with a heart that remained ever fresh, ever pure, ever loyal through youth and age, would not yield his ideals to the mode. So the mode warbled the songs of others who were more amiabe.
 Pons did not become misanthropic. Quite simply he accepted his fate and went about his lesson giving and other ill-paid work as gently and faithfully as such children as he do. He did not even indulge in that highly proper and satis- factory luxury of the forgotten-the pois- onous criticism of the successful ri- vals Pons, hopelessly out of fashi,el even in this matter, wept tears when he heard a good bit of music. He had the genius of admiration, of comprehension.
 It was this that made him a collector. Iror forty years he had spent the greater part of his beggarly income for beautiful things, paintings porcelains, cabinets. everything and anything, but always masterpiece. He had an unerring scent for g. true work of art. Rarely could he af- ford to pay more than 50 francs for any thing The most beautiful thing in the world had no existence for Pons if it's price amounted to 300 francs.
 That limited his opportunities; but in the search for the things he loved with so unsuitable a passion Pons had the legs of a stag and the ingenuity, craft and fierceness of a savage on the warpath. So 1t happened that in his forty years of collection he had amassed a truly mar vicious museum that would have set the princes of the bric-a-brac world crazy with longing and envy.
 Pons. however, never attended great sales or frequented the shops of the we'll known dealers. He worshiped his 67 paint ings, among which were Durer and a Sebastian del Piombo, a Fra Bartolomeo della Porta and Hobbema, which four pictures alone were practically priceless; and he walked adoringly among his four teen statues and his buhl cabinets and carvings and snuff boxes, and never knew that the Pons collection would bring from 100000 to SC)0OO francs.
 He was clever only in pursuing one of these objects of his affection. In all other things he was as innocent as a child. Therefore he starved himself to buy something that he fanced Nothing could express his love for art so well as to say this, for Pons had one of the seven deadly sins. He was a gourmand. In the days of his celebrity he had been forced to keep a notebook of his dinner engagements. Thus he contracted the fatal habit of dining well. In that epoch under the empire many a private host initiated the splendor of the queens and kings who then filled Paris to overflow ing.
 When the splendid era vanished Pons found himself adrift, confronted by the Spartan broth of 1S-penny eating houses. He shuddered He could not exchange the choice dishes, the choice wines. the choice fruits for food that his soul and stomach abhorred.
 Unable to command the state of dis tinguished guest any longer, he accepted the position of parasite. By executing in- numerable commissions, by discharging the functions of messenger or even a servant, he contrived to keep himself on the list of occasional guests at few houses where there were good cooks
 He was old, poor and plain-a three fold poverty that made a bleak and red nosed winter for poor Pons.
 The passion for dining out was the one sorrowful shadow that darkened the ex- astence of the other half of this pair of nut-crackers. Schmucke bewailed the fa- tal habit and pondered over plans for curing his friend of the degrading vice; for the exquisite sense of smell which distinguishes the dog belongs in moral sense to the genuine friends. He scents from afar the sorrows of his friend, and divines their hidden sources.
 schmucke had retained all the artless- ness of infancy. He was great musi- clan, but he remained music teacher hike Pons, when . nttls audacdty would have made him famous composer. He Eas anothss Pons- Nevsrs perhapss had