Part 17 (1/2)

_Our Portrait Painter_ (_heroically_). ”I am afraid children's portraits are not in my line.”]

[Ill.u.s.tration: AFTER THE SIXTH REJECTION BY THE R.A.--_The Prodigal._ ”Well, dad, here I am, ready to go into the office to-morrow. I've given up my studio and put all my sketches in the fire.”

_Fond Father._ ”That's right, 'Arold. Good lad! Your 'art's in the right place, after all!”]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Brown_ (_as Hamlet_) _to Jones_ (_as Charles the Second_). ”'Normous amount of _taste_ displayed here to-night!”]

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ART PATRON

”I'll have it if you shorten the 'orizon, and make it quids instead of guineas!”]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHOW SUNDAY.--_Brown_ (_trying to find something to admire in Smudge's painting_). ”By Jove, old chap, those flowers are beautifully put in!”

_Smudge._ ”Yes; my old friend--Thingummy--'R.A.' you know, painted them in for me.”]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENVY.--Scene--_Miss Semple and Dawber, standing near his picture._

_Miss Semple._ ”Why, there's a crowd in front of Madder's picture!”

_Dawber._ ”Someone fainted, I suppose!”]

AN ARTISTIC EPISODE

[”Incapacity for work has come to be accepted as the hall-mark of genius.... The collector wants only the thing that is rare, and therefore the artist must make his work as rare as he can.”--_Daily Chronicle._]

Josephine found me stretched full length in a hammock in the garden.

”Why aren't you at work?” she asked; ”not feeling seedy, I hope?”

”Never better,” said I. ”But I've been making myself too cheap.”

”We couldn't possibly help going to the Joneses last night, dear.”

”Tush,” said I. ”I mean there is too much of me.”

”I don't quite understand,” she said; ”but there certainly will be if you spend your mornings lolling in that hammock.”

The distortive wantonness of this remark left me cold.