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The Pot-Boiler
by
“Vell, you do, too, or you couldn’t have painted dat,” the dealer retorted. “And I don’t say dey’re wrong–mind dat. I like a bretty picture myself. And I understand the way dey feel. Dey’re villing to let Sargent take liberties vid them, because it’s like being punched in de ribs by a King; but if anybody else baints them, they vant to look as sweet as an obituary.” He turned earnestly to Stanwell. “The thing is to attract their notice. Vonce you got it they von’t gif you dime to sleep. And dat’s why I’m here to-day–you’ve attracted Mrs. Millington’s notice, and vonce you’re hung in dat new ball-room–dat’s vere she vants you, in a big gold panel–vonce you’re dere, vy, you’ll be like the Pianola–no home gompleat without you. And I ain’t going to charge you any commission on the first job!”
He stood before the painter, exuding a mixture of deference and patronage in which either element might predominate as events developed; but Stanwell could see in the incident only the stuff for a good story.
“My dear Shepson,” he said, “what are you talking about? This is no picture of mine. Why don’t you ask me to do you a Corot at once? I hear there’s a great demand for them still in the West. Or an Arthur Schracker–I can do Schracker as well as Mungold,” he added, turning around a small canvas at which a paint-pot seemed to have been hurled with violence from a considerable distance.
Shepson ignored the allusion to Corot, but screwed his eyes at the picture. “Ah, Schracker–vell, the Schracker sdyle would take first rate if you were a foreigner–but, for goodness sake, don’t try it on Mrs. Millington!”
Stanwell pushed the two skits aside. “Oh, you can trust me,” he cried humorously. “The pearls and the eyes very large–the extremities very small. Isn’t that about the size of it?”
Dat’s it–dat’s it. And the cheque as big as you vant to make it! Mrs. Millington vants the picture finished in time for her first barty in the new ball-room, and if you rush the job she won’t sdickle at an extra thousand. Vill you come along with me now and arrange for your first sitting?”
He stood before the young man, urgent, paternal, and so imbued with the importance of his mission that his face stretched to a ludicrous length of dismay when Stanwell, administering a good-humoured push to his shoulder, cried gaily: “My dear fellow, it will make my price rise still higher when the lady hears I’m too busy to take any orders at present–and that I’m actually obliged to turn you out now because I’m expecting a sitter!”
It was part of Shepson’s business to have a quick ear for the note of finality, and he offered no resistance to Stanwell’s friendly impulsion; but on the threshold he paused to murmur, with a regretful glance at the denuded studio: “You could haf done it, Mr. Sdanwell–you could haf done it!”
II
KATE ARRAN was Stanwell’s sitter; but the janitor had hardly filled the stove when she came in to say that she could not sit. Caspar had had a bad night: he was depressed and feverish, and in spite of his protests she had resolved to fetch the doctor. Care sat on her usually tranquil features, and Stanwell, as he offered to go for the doctor, wished he could have caught in his picture the wide gloom of her brow. There was always a kind of Biblical breadth in the expression of her emotions, and today she suggested a text from Isaiah.
“But you’re not busy?” she hesitated; in the full voice which seemed tuned to a solemn rhetoric.
“I meant to be–with you. But since that’s off I’m quite unemployed.”
She smiled interrogatively. “I thought perhaps you had an order. I met Mr. Shepson rubbing his hands on the landing.”
“Was he rubbing his hands? Well, it was not over me. He says that from the style of my pictures he doesn’t suppose I want to sell.”