—“still say to himself again as he had, said a hundred times before, the art of the Saltmarsh-Handel is an art apart, there is nothing in the heavens above or in the earth beneath that resembles it,—” “Py chiminy, nur hören Sie einmal! In my life day haf I never heard so brecious worts.” “So I talked him out of the hack, Mr. Tracy, and he let up on that, and said put in a hearse, then—because he’s chief mate of a hearse but don’t own it—stands a watch for wages, you know. But I can’t do a hearse any more than I can a hack; so here we are—becalmed, you see. And it’s the same with women and such. They come and they want a little johnry picture—” “It’s the accessories that make it a _genre?_” “Yes—cannon, or cat, or any little thing like that, that you heave in to whoop up the effect. We could do a prodigious trade with the women if we could foreground the things they like, but they don’t give a damn for artillery. Mine’s the lack,” continued the captain with a sigh, “Andy’s end of the business is all right I tell you _he’s_ an artist from way back!” “Yoost hear dot old man! He always talk ’poud me like dot,” purred the pleased German. “Look at his work yourself! Fourteen portraits in a row. And no two of them alike.” “Now that you speak of it, it is true; I hadn’t noticed it before. It is very remarkable. Unique, I suppose.” “I should say so. That’s the very _thing_ about Andy—he _discriminates_. Discrimination’s the thief of time—forty-ninth Psalm; but that ain’t any matter, it’s the honest thing, and it pays in the end.” “Yes, he certainly is great in that feature, one is obliged to admit it; but—now mind, I’m not really criticising—don’t you think he is just a trifle overstrong in technique?” The captain’s face was knocked expressionless by this remark. It remained quite vacant while he muttered to himself— “Technique—technique—polytechnique—pyro-technique; that’s it, likely—fireworks too much color.” Then he spoke up with serenity and confidence, and said: “Well, yes, he does pile it on pretty loud; but they all like it, you know—fact is, it’s the life of the business. Take that No. 9, there, Evans the butcher. He drops into the stoodio as sober-colored as anything you ever see: _now_ look at him. You can’t tell him from scarlet fever. Well, it pleases that butcher to death. I’m making a study of a sausage-wreath to hang on the cannon, and I don’t really reckon I can do it right, but if I can, we can break the butcher.” “Unquestionably your confederate—I mean your—your fellow-craftsman—is a great colorist—” “Oh, danke schön!—” —“in fact a quite extraordinary colorist; a colorist, I make bold to say, without imitator here or abroad—and with a most bold and effective touch, a touch like a battering ram; and a manner so peculiar and romantic, and extraneous, and ad libitum, and heart-searching, that—that—he—he is an impressionist, I presume?” “No,” said the captain simply, “he is a Presbyterian.”