A large manservant in full livery brought out the pictures to show us. He wore white gloves and was careful not to touch the surface of the canvas. I remember the portrait of Sarasate; it was very large and the servant acted as an easel, holding it on his toes, with his two hands at the sides. Our conversation became quite interesting at the moment, and his master left him standing in that position for more than half an hour while we talked of other things. I thought this very inconsiderate, as we had never treated servants that way. It was this same portrait of Sarasate that I later saw finished in the Salon. Whistler had kicked up a great row, because it had occupied only the central position of the left-hand room instead of the right, which was more popular. He spoke to me about it, and I told him that he should not care, as the poor fiddler looked as if he were trying to commit suicide in the Metropolitan subway. He tried to get angry and wanted to know why. The figure was all black, with the signature (a gold butterfly) looking like the headlight of an engine, about to dash it into oblivion. Whistler could always find plenty of adorers to sit at his feet and let him use them as a doormat. The Claimant in Lemon Yellow told me that he was hurrying home with him one evening in the rain, when the master spied something that pleased his æsthetic taste. It was a little lighted grocer’s window. He stopped like a pointer dog, ordered the Claimant to go home, a mile or more, and get his box. Then he started painting like mad in the dark, and for more than an hour the Claimant held his umbrella over him and handed him his materials. Truly, the man had an hypnotic power. Whistler was all heart and all pocketbook to any poor unknown and, for all his arrogance, the servants loved him; but he could never resist a chance to rap Authority. He sent his “second-class thanks” for a second-class medal awarded him at the Salon. Considering the fact that this is the highest honor a foreigner gets, it seems, for once, that the little man lost his sense of humor. He couldn’t resist getting in his knock at the English, either. I remember a phrase in a letter written by him to a friend of mine. “Yes, Sid, here I am again in Paris and gentle Peace seems at last to be inclined to take up her permanent abode in my little pavilion; but I shall drop back across the Channel, now and again, just to see that too great a sense of security may not come upon the people.” They reveled in it; he was master then, and the British love to be patronized by some one who has arrived.