The American Claimant

  CHAPTER XVI.

  Brady arrived with a box, and departed, after saying, "They're finishingone up, but they'll be along as soon as it's done."

  Barrow took a frameless oil portrait a foot square from the box, set itup in a good light, without comment, and reached for another, taking afurtive glance at Tracy, meantime. The stony solemnity in Tracy's faceremained as it was, and gave out no sign of interest. Barrow placedthe second portrait beside the first, and stole another glance whilereaching for a third. The stone image softened, a shade. No. 3 forcedthe ghost of a smile, No. 4 swept indifference wholly away, and No. 5started a laugh which was still in good and hearty condition when No. 14took its place in the row.

  "Oh, you're all right, yet," said Barrow. "You see you're not pastamusement."

  The pictures were fearful, as to color, and atrocious as to drawingand expression; but the feature which squelched animosity and made themfunny was a feature which could not achieve its full force in a singlepicture, but required the wonder-working assistance of repetition. Oneloudly dressed mechanic in stately attitude, with his hand on a cannon,ashore, and a ship riding at anchor in the offing,--this is merely odd;but when one sees the same cannon and the same ship in fourteen picturesin a row, and a different mechanic standing watch in each, the thinggets to be funny.

  "Explain--explain these aberrations," said Tracy.

  "Well, they are not the achievement of a single intellect, a singletalent--it takes two to do these miracles. They are collaborations; theone artist does the figure, the other the accessories. The figure-artistis a German shoemaker with an untaught passion for art, the other is asimple hearted old Yankee sailor-man whose possibilities are strictlylimited to his ship, his cannon and his patch of petrified sea. Theywork these things up from twenty-five-cent tintypes; they get sixdollars apiece for them, and they can grind out a couple a day when theystrike what they call a boost--that is, an inspiration."

  "People actually pay money for these calumnies?"

  "They actually do--and quite willingly, too. And these abortionistscould double their trade and work the women in, if Capt. Saltmarsh couldwhirl a horse in, or a piano, or a guitar, in place of his cannon. Thefact is, he fatigues the market with that cannon. Even the male market,I mean. These fourteen in the procession are not all satisfied. One isan old 'independent' fireman, and he wants an engine in place of thecannon; another is a mate of a tug, and wants a tug in place of theship --and so on, and so on. But the captain can't make a tug that isdeceptive, and a fire engine is many flights beyond his power."

  "This is a most extraordinary form of robbery, I never have heard ofanything like it. It's interesting."

  "Yes, and so are the artists. They are perfectly honest men, andsincere. And the old sailor-man is full of sound religion, and is asdevoted a student of the Bible and misquoter of it as you can findanywhere. I don't know a better man or kinder hearted old soul thanSaltmarsh, although he does swear a little, sometimes."

  "He seems to be perfect. I want to know him, Barrow."

  "You'll have the chance. I guess I hear them coming, now. We'll drawthem out on their art, if you like."

  The artists arrived and shook hands with great heartiness. The Germanwas forty and a little fleshy, with a shiny bald head and a kindlyface and deferential manner. Capt. Saltmarsh was sixty, tall, erect,powerfully built, with coal-black hair and whiskers, and he had a welltanned complexion, and a gait and countenance that were full of command,confidence and decision. His horny hands and wrists were covered withtattoo-marks, and when his lips parted, his teeth showed up white andblemishless. His voice was the effortless deep bass of a church organ,and would disturb the tranquility of a gas flame fifty yards away.

  "They're wonderful pictures," said Barrow. "We've been examining them."

  "It is very bleasant dot you like dem," said Handel, the German,greatly pleased. "Und you, Herr Tracy, you haf peen bleased mit dem too,alretty?"

  "I can honestly say I have never seen anything just like them before."

  "Schon!" cried the German, delighted. "You hear, Gaptain? Here is achentleman, yes, vot abbreviate unser aart."

  The captain was charmed, and said:

  "Well, sir, we're thankful for a compliment yet, though they're not asscarce now as they used to be before we made a reputation."

  "Getting the reputation is the up-hill time in most things, captain."

  "It's so. It ain't enough to know how to reef a gasket, you got to makethe mate know you know it. That's reputation. The good word, said at theright time, that's the word that makes us; and evil be to him that evilthinks, as Isaiah says."

  "It's very relevant, and hits the point exactly," said Tracy.

  "Where did you study art, Captain?"

  "I haven't studied; it's a natural gift."

  "He is born mit dose cannon in him. He tondt haf to do noding, hischenius do all de vork. Of he is asleep, and take a pencil in his hand,out come a cannon. Py crashus, of he could do a clavier, of he could doa guitar, of he could do a vashtub, it is a fortune, heiliger Yohannissit is yoost a fortune!"

  "Well, it is an immense pity that the business is hindered and limitedin this unfortunate way."

  The captain grew a trifle excited, himself, now:

  "You've said it, Mr. Tracy!--Hindered? well, I should say so. Why, lookhere. This fellow here, No. 11, he's a hackman,--a flourishing hackman,I may say. He wants his hack in this picture. Wants it where the cannonis. I got around that difficulty, by telling him the cannon's ourtrademark, so to speak--proves that the picture's our work, and I wasafraid if we left it out people wouldn't know for certain if it was aSaltmarsh--Handel--now you wouldn't yourself--"

  "What, Captain? You wrong yourself, indeed you do. Anyone who has onceseen a genuine Saltmarsh-Handel is safe from imposture forever.Strip it, flay it, skin it out of every detail but the bare colorand expression, and that man will still recognize it--still stop toworship--"

  "Oh, how it makes me feel to hear dose oxpressions!--"

  --"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 theheavens above or in the earth beneath that resembles it,--"

  "Py chiminy, nur horen Sie einmal! In my life day haf I never heard sobrecious 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 hearsebut don't own it--stands a watch for wages, you know. But I can't do ahearse 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 littlejohnry picture--"

  "It's the accessories that make it a 'genre?'"

  "Yes--cannon, or cat, or any little thing like that, that you heave into whoop up the effect. We could do a prodigious trade with the women ifwe could foreground the things they like, but they don't give a damn forartillery. Mine's the lack," continued the captain with a sigh, "Andy'send of the business is all right I tell you he's an artist from wayback!"

  "Yoost hear dot old man! He always talk 'poud me like dot," purred thepleased German.

  "Look at his work yourself! Fourteen portraits in a row. And no two ofthem alike."

  "Now that you speak of it, it is true; I hadn't noticed it before. It isvery 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'tany 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 atrifle 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 andconfidence, and said:

  "Well, yes, he does pile it on prett
y loud; but they all like it, youknow--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 asanything you ever see: now look at him. You can't tell him from scarletfever. Well, it pleases that butcher to death. I'm making a study of asausage-wreath to hang on the cannon, and I don't really reckon I can doit right, but if I can, we can break the butcher."

  "Unquestionably your confederate--I mean your--your fellow-craftsman--isa great colorist--"

  "Oh, danke schon!--"

  --"in fact a quite extraordinary colorist; a colorist, I make bold tosay, without imitator here or abroad--and with a most bold and effectivetouch, a touch like a battering ram; and a manner so peculiar andromantic, 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."

  "It accounts for it all--all--there's something divine about hisart,--soulful, unsatisfactory, yearning, dim hearkening on the voidhorizon, vague--murmuring to the spirit out of ultra-marine distancesand far-sounding cataclysms of uncreated space--oh, if he--if, he--hashe ever tried distemper?"

  The captain answered up with energy:

  "Not if he knows himself! But his dog has, and--"

  "Oh, no, it vas not my dog."

  "Why, you said it was your dog."

  "Oh, no, gaptain, I--"

  "It was a white dog, wasn't it, with his tail docked, and one ear gone,and--"

  "Dot's him, dot's him!--der fery dog. Wy, py Chorge, dot dog he wouldeat baint yoost de same like--"

  "Well, never mind that, now--'vast heaving--I never saw such a man. Youstart him on that dog and he'll dispute a year. Blamed if I haven't seenhim keep it up a level two hours and a half."

  "Why captain!" said Barrow. "I guess that must be hearsay."

  "No, sir, no hearsay about it--he disputed with me."

  "I don't see how you stood it."

  "Oh, you've got to--if you run with Andy. But it's the only fault he'sgot."

  "Ain't you afraid of acquiring it?"

  "Oh, no," said the captain, tranquilly, "no danger of that, I reckon."

  The artists presently took their leave. Then Barrow put his hands onTracy's shoulders and said:

  "Look me in the eye, my boy. Steady, steady. There--it's just as Ithought--hoped, anyway; you're all right, thank goodness. Nothing thematter with your mind. But don't do that again--even for fun. It isn'twise. They wouldn't have believed you if you'd been an earl's son. Why,they couldn't--don't you know that? What ever possessed you to takesuch a freak? But never mind about that; let's not talk of it. It was amistake; you see that yourself."

  "Yes--it was a mistake."

  "Well, just drop it out of your mind; it's no harm; we all make them.Pull your courage together, and don't brood, and don't give up. I'm atyour back, and we'll pull through, don't you be afraid."

  When he was gone, Barrow walked the floor a good while, uneasy in hismind. He said to himself, "I'm troubled about him. He never would havemade a break like that if he hadn't been a little off his balance. ButI know what being out of work and no prospect ahead can do for a man.First it knocks the pluck out of him and drags his pride in the dirt;worry does the rest, and his mind gets shaky. I must talk to thesepeople. No--if there's any humanity in them--and there is, atbottom--they'll be easier on him if they think his troubles havedisturbed his reason. But I've got to find him some work; work's theonly medicine for his disease. Poor devil! away off here, and not afriend."