“You young artist fellers,” the Senator was saying, vehemently, “of course you all think of me as a tough old politician. So I am, and so I want to be! But the mistake you make is, thinking I’m nothing else. That young Mather that painted me was just the same. He made a swell portrait of me, of course, red plush curtain and all;—I know enough not to deny that. But he wasn’t so much interested in me as he was in his way of painting me. And it shows in his work, sticks out all over!” I took to heart this luminous bit of art-criticism while the Senator ran on. “And I can tell you, young man, that this hand carries me back in a way you don’t dream of. You don’t even guess at the sort of feeling I have when I look at it and touch it! You’re incapable of knowing! You’re not old enough or wise enough or kind enough, perhaps! You’re too college-sure in your own way of feeling to care a continental about what _I_ feel!” I could not help seeing that some strong emotion had visited his heart. But I thought he’d like it best if I didn’t say much; besides, I had my work to do. The Bullwinkle Building must not lack its crowning touch through any failure of mine to seize the supreme moment. So I calmly swept my big tool alongside of the Senator’s clay face, half-erasing a thousand fussy unnecessary markings from its map. My erstwhile sitter was still hovering excitedly over the marble. He had nothing whatever to say about _morbidezza_. “Look here,” he exclaimed, turning upon me with a gesture of real dignity, “you probably don’t see, or imagine you see, any resemblance between this great paw of mine and that lovely lady’s hand! No, I wouldn’t expect you to!” Now I had often observed that the Senator’s hand was still handsome and energetic. An unusual hand, I had thought, for a politician. It was uninvaded either by chalky deposit on the knuckles, or fatty increment on the fingers, or even by swollen veins on the back. Hence I was glad to admit the likeness he saw; and weighing my words, while I laid in a good strong dark under a resounding lock of hair he had just tossed up from his forehead, I congratulated him on his artistic discernment. He shook off the compliment with a growl, though I know he liked it. “But what I want to know is,” he went on, “how the deuce did _you_ happen to make this lovely thing? Is it for sale? What price, f.o.b., young feller, what price?” Gigi leaked out from his burlap. I could feel his eyes imploring me, for Mario’s sake, to play my part as a man! The Senator noted my hesitation. “Isn’t it for sale?” “Upon my word,” I replied, intent on fixing the Bullwinkle nostril for posterity, “I hardly know whether it’s for sale or not.” For the moment I didn’t care, a happy issue out of the Bullwinkle bust being from every point of view more important to me, just then, than all the marble hands from here to Genoa.