Here often at night Mac held forth to an admiring crowd of young painters who believed in his brush and who loved the man who wielded it. When I look back now down the vista of twenty years and see how fine and strong and superb that brush was, how true, how wonderful in color, how much better than any other painter of his time--Barbizon, London, or Dusseldorf--and think of how many lies the resident picture dealer told his patrons to discredit Mac's genius, I always experience a peculiar hotness under my collar-button. It cools off, it is true, whenever I see one of his masterpieces hung to-day on the walls of the redeemed. My anger then turns to a genial warmth, suffusing my cheeks and permeating my being, especially when I learn the sum paid for the smallest product of his brush. "One of MacWhirter's, sir; one of his choicest; painted in his best period," says this same fraud to-day (the period, remember, when he would say, "What can one expect of the Hudson Rivery School, sir?"), and then the dealer demands a price which, had it been paid in Mac's earlier days, would have resulted in his breaking all students' rules and setting up Johannesburg of '41 instead of the simple steins of the Hofbrau with which Lonnegan, Boggs, and the rest of us were being regaled. The hospitable and ever alert Oscar did not welcome us this time, but a new waiter, who sprang at Mac as if he had been his lost brother--a joyous sort of waiter, clean-shaven as a priest, ruddy-cheeked, blue-eyed, with short, tan-colored hair sticking straight up on his head, looking as if at some time in his life he had been frightened half out of his wits and had never been able to keep his hair down since. The appearance of this overjoyed individual produced a peculiar effect on Mac. "Oh, Mr. Pusch found a place for you at last, did he, Carl?" he burst out. "Glad you're here," and Mac stepped forward and shook the waiter's hand with more than his usual warmth. Boggs looked at me and winked. What would Mac be doing next? "Some member of the royal family, Mac?" asked Boggs, when the waiter had left the room to execute Mac's orders. "No," said Mac, unfolding his napkin, "just plain man." "I know," said Boggs, "ran off with a soprano at the Imperial Opera House; disinherited by his father; fought a duel with his Colonel on account of her; dismissed from his club; sought refuge in flight to God's free country, where for years he worked in a small café on Fourth Avenue. Was known for years as 'Carl' where----" Mac raised his eyes at Boggs. "Lively imagination you've got, Boggs. If I were you I----"