Francis Hopkinson Smith

“ The banker found himself talking to Boggs in whispers, his respect for his host increasing every moment. That men could plod on as Mac was doing, hampered by a poverty which was only too evident in his surroundings, and still maintain a certain contempt for riches, hidden though it might be under a courtesy which found expression in a big broad fellowship, was a revelation to him. A sort of reverence for the man took possession of him, as if he had fallen upon a supposed tramp whom he had afterward discovered to be either a prophet or some world-known philosopher. ”

“ In the centre of the enormous cavern, half-way between the light of the street opening above the steps and the distant cellar-window light, I came to a circle of big stone columns standing close together, enclosing a space not much bigger than this room of Mac's. They were of marble and rather large for their height, although it was so dark that I could not see the roof distinctly. At this instant one of those indefinable chills, which with me always foretells danger, crept over me. I called to the Turk. There was no answer; only the sound of his feet, but quicker, as if he were running. ”

“ No, nothing to do with my memory of tarred hemp and red roses; only to make my point clear to you," and Mac's head sank the lower in his chair. "Did you ever focus your mind, for one thing, on the contrasts that the two sides of a nine-inch brick wall of any house in town present? Did you never lie in your bed, with your head to the plaster, and wonder what was going on nine inches away from your ears? I have; I do it now. It may be sorrow or cruelty or death, if we did but know—some girl mourning for her lover; some woman crouching in fear; some silent body, cold in a sheet. ”

“ I saw Quarterman that morning when he started out alone quail shooting, the setter bounding before him, running up and springing at him, and off again—doing all the things a human dog does to tell a man how happy he is to go along, and what a lot of fun the two are going to have together. I watched them until they got clear of the marshes and disappeared in the woods on the way to the open country beyond. All that day the picture of the well-equipped, alert young fellow and the spring of the joyous setter kept coming to my mind. ”

“ If you want Mac at his best, never interrupt him. When he is in one of his reminiscent moods his philosophy, his knowledge of life, his wide personal experience, his many adventures by land and sea make him the most delightful of conversationalists, while his choice of words and marvellous powers of description—talking as a painter talks, one who sees and who, therefore, can make you see; using words as some men do pigments with all the force of their contrasts—make his descriptions but so many brilliantly colored pictures. ”

“ The trees in the old Square were tuneful with impatient birds ready to move in and begin housekeeping as soon as the buds poked their yellow heads out of their nestings of bark. The eager sun, who had been trying all winter to gain the corner of Mac's studio window, had finally carried the sash and grimy pane by assault: its beams were now basking on the Daghestan rug in full defiance of the smouldering coals crouching half-dead in their bed of ashes. ”

“ Every art critic in town is clinging to the columns craning his head. Brown is in a collapse, his body stretched out on one of the green sofas. All eyes are fastened—even Brown's glazed peepers—on a small yellow card slipped into the lower left-hand corner of a canvas occupying the centre of the south wall. Before it, down on his knees, pouring out his heart in thankfulness, is the happy purchaser, the tears rolling down his cheeks, his——"
"Boggs, what the devil are you talking about!" cried Mac, a sudden light breaking out on his face. ”

“ He knows all about Boggs, but he's too polite to tell," replied Mac.
"Get him to whisper it then in your off ear," suggested Boggs. "He'll surprise you with his estimate of one of nature's noblemen," and he thrust his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat.
"No, keep it to yourself, Chief," remarked Mac. "But I'm not joking, I'm in dead earnest. Anybody can find out what a man thinks of a dog; but what does a dog think of a man, especially some of those two-legged brutes who by right of dollars claim to own them? ”

“ While the two men talked, Pitkin and Van Brunt walked in—the latter a Dutch painter in New York for the winter, just arrived by steamer. The atmosphere of No. 3 was evidently congenial to the man, for, after a hand-shake all round, the Hollander produced his own pipe, filled it from a leather pouch in his pocket, and sat down before the fire as unconcerned and as contented as if he'd been one of the fire's circle from the day of its lighting. ”

“ The fire, however, seems to understand, never answering back as it does to me when I try to punch it into life, but simmering away like a slow-boiling pot, giving out a steady glow for hours as it listens, nursing its heat until the master has finished or puts on another log. ”

“ What we have got to do is to get back to our plain old-fashioned kitchens. The best dinner I ever had in my life was when I was sixteen years old, and even now, whenever I get a whiff from a shop where they are cooking the same combination, I can no more pass it than a drunkard can pass a rum-mill."
"Drunk on pork and beans!" growled Boggs in a low voice to Marny. "I knew you'd come to no good end, Pitkin. You ought to sign a pledge and join a non-adulterated food society." ”

“ Here everybody is free and equal; free with everything you own and ready to divide it up equally as soon as they get their hands on it. Democracy is the curse of our country."
"Woods, you talk like a two-cent demagogue," broke out Boggs. "If you and Lonnegan don't give up Murray Hill life you'll be worse than Mr. Murphy's two dudes. There is no such thing as democracy in our country. You couldn't find it with a microscope. As soon as a man gets one hundred cents together and has got them hived away safely in a savings bank he becomes a capitalist. The next generation breeds aristocrats. ”

“ Mac waved Boggs away with the same gesture with which he would have brushed off a fly, and continued:
"When I say that he has always lived among gentlemen, I state the exact fact. You can see that in his manners and in the way in which he retains not only his self-respect, but his courage and loyalty. You noticed, did you not, that it took him but an instant to get on his feet when Lonnegan seized Boggs? You will also agree with me that no one has entered this room this winter more gracefully, or with more ease and composure, nor one who has known better what to do with his arms and legs. ”

“ Mac refilled his pipe, rested the tongs where his hand could grasp them, and continued, his big shoulders filling the chair, the light of the blaze on his humorous, kindly face.
"There are great contrasts in life, my boy, that never fail to interest me—big Rembrandt things that stand out sharp and solid, sudden as the exit from a foul shaft into a sunny winter's day, white and cold. And the reverse side—the black side. That is the worst of these contrasts, the darks always predominate—out of a yacht's warm cabin, for instance, into a merciless, hungry sea, without a moment's warning. ”

“ Come into the house, Nellie, I want to speak to you.'
"Brutal, wasn't it? I have hated his kind ever since. Money! Money! Money! You'd think the only thing in life was the accumulation of dollars. Flowers bloom, mists curl up mountain sides, brooks laugh in the sunlight, birds sing, and children romp and play. There is poverty and suffering and death; there are stricken hearts needing help; kind words to speak; famishing minds to educate; there is art, and science, and music—Nothing counts. Money! Money! Money! ”

“ All the good dinners in the world were jolly dinners; all the poor ones were funeral gatherings, no matter how good the cooking. I'll give you an idea of what a good dinner ought to be. None of your selfish, solitary-confinement sort of a meal like this self-centred Dutchman's, but a rip-roaring, waistcoat-swelling, breath-catching, hilarious feast, which began with a hurrah, continued with every man singing psalms of thanksgiving over the dishes and the company, and ended with a tempest of good cheer and everybody loving everybody else twice as much for having come together. ”

“ You fellows that insist on painting things out of your heads instead of following what is set down before you will run to seed like cabbages. Why you want to scoop up the emptyings of everybody's wash-basins, when it is so easy to get buckets of pure water fresh from nature's well, is what gets me."
"Talks like an art critic," growled Pitkin.
"And with as little sense," added Woods.
"More like a plumber, I should think," remarked Lonnegan drily. "Only don't you go up on that hill at five o'clock in the morning, Mac, or you'll never finish that picture or anything else. ”

“ At the same instant the great dog drew in his paws and rose to his feet, his eyes fixed on his master's movements—rose as an athlete rises, using the muscles of his knees and ankles to pull his body erect. If his master was in danger he was ready. Only smothered laughter, however, came from both Boggs and Lonnegan.
"I take it all back, Lonny," sputtered Boggs, trying to release himself from Lonnegan's grip. "The woman's husband wanted two country houses, not one. Call off your dog, I can't fight two brutes at once." ”

“ We know you've got another portrait, but don't split our ears over it."
A black slouch hat rose slowly above the edge of the screen, then a lock of hair, and then a round fat face in a broad grin. It was Boggs!
"Thought you were Woods," cried Mac.
"I'm aware of that idiotic mistake on your part, great and masterful painter," burst out Boggs, bowing grandiloquently.
"You're not half so good-looking as Woods, you fat woodchuck," shouted back Mac.
"I am aware of it, great and masterful painter, but I am infinitely more valuable. I carry priceless things about me. ”

“ The man seemed hardly able to keep his arms from around Mac's neck. I've seen a dog sometimes show that peculiar form of trembling joy when brought suddenly into his master's presence after a long absence, but never a man.
Marny now spoke up.
"Tell us about this waiter, Mac."
"There's nothing to tell; just one of my acquaintances, that's all. Some I bow to, some I shake hands with—Carl is one of the last," and Mac nodded and emptied his glass at a single draught, shutting off all discussion. No one knew better than Mac how to avoid a subject on which he preferred to keep silence. ”

“ He looks up at the ceiling, lying back in his chair, talking to some crack or stain in the plastering, or drops his head and talks to the smouldering coals, his human eyes fixed on the logs. This habit of talking to whatever is within the reach of his hands or legs—his brushes, palette, colors, the chair that gets in his way, the rug he stumbles over—is characteristic of the man; woodsmen have it who live alone in great forests. Mac's explanation is that he lived so much alone in his early life that he acquired the habit in self-defence. ”

“ Boggs, the animal painter, whose studio lay immediately beneath MacWhirter's, was never, at first, satisfied until he had punched it black in the face; Wharton, who occupied No. 4, across the hall, would insist that each log should be stood on its head and the kindling grouped about it; while Pitkin, the sculptor, who occupied the basement because of his dirty clay and big chunks of marble, was miserable until he had jammed the back-log so tight against the besmoked chimney that not a breath of air could get between it and the blackened bricks. ”

“ Good Bohemians, so called the world over, have an international code of manners, just as all club men of equal class agree upon certain details of dress and etiquette, no matter what their tongue. The brush, the chisel, the trowel, and the test-tube are so many talismans—open sesames to the whole fraternity.
The Hollander had overheard the last half of Mac's sally and Lonnegan's grave rejoinder.
"Yes, the terrapin and the canvas-back, I hear much of them. What does a terrapin look like, Mr. Lonnegan?" ”

“ A lot of men make this mistake, thinking a woman is in love with them when she only wants to be kind. She can't always be on the defensive and still be natural. The greatest relief that can come to one of them is to find that the man whom she wants only as a companion is contented to be that and nothing more and won't take advantage of her confidence. So I say I don't know. She was a human kind of a girl, this one—real human."
Here Mac paused for an instant, his eyes on the fast-dying embers—as if he were recalling the girl more clearly to his mind. ”

“ As I opened the gate I could see the glow of a fire in the stove, the smell getting stronger every minute. Inside, I found a man sitting in his shirt-sleeves by a table. The table had two plates on it, two knives, two forks, and two big china cups. Bending over the hot stove was his wife. She was stirring a large bowl filled to the brim with buckwheat batter. On the stove was a hot griddle and a fry-pan, and coiled in the fry-pan, trim as a rope coiled flat on a yacht's deck, lay a string of link sausages, with the bight of the line sticking up in the centre, like Mac's thumb. ”

“ I can think of nothing more satisfying than a well-appointed table, with the servants about and the dishes properly served, and with the flowers, silver, and glass, the better wines coming later, the coffee and cigar at the end. And I can think of nothing more pitiful than for a man who has had all this, to be obliged to stand at a cheap counter and eat a cheap sandwich. My father used to tell me a story about the spendthrift son of an old baron who lived in my town, by the name of De Ruyter, and who spent in just two years every guilder his father left him. ”