hands, and nobody ever saw him at work
anywhere. For what he did not do he made up by telling us of what he
might do. His were the pictures unpainted which, like the songs unsung,
are always the best. He condescended to approve of the Old Masters,
assured that the masterpieces he might choose to produce must rank with
theirs, but he never forgot the great gulf fixed between himself and the
Modern Masters, whose pictures were worthy of his approval only when he
had been their inspiration. It was fortunate for American Art that
scarcely an American artist could be named whom Forepaugh had not
inspired. And if he praised Abbey and Millet more than most, it was
because he had posed for both and could answer for it that Millet's
porch, or studio, or dining-room, which had had the honour of serving as
his background, was as true as the figure of himself set against it.

Like all talkers who know too much, Forepaugh had, what Carlyle called,
a terrible faculty for developing into a bore. Some of our little group
would run when they saw him at the door, others took malicious pleasure
in interrupting him and suddenly changing the conversation in the hope
to catch him tripping. But out of all such tests he came triumphantly. I
never thought him more wonderful than the evening when somebody abruptly
began to talk about Theosophy in the middle of one of his confidences
about the Italian Court. It was no use. Without stopping to take breath,
at once Forepaugh began to tell us the most marvellous theosophical
adventures, which he knew not by hearsay, but because he had passed
through them himself. We might express an opinion: he stated facts. And
it seemed that he had no more intimate friend than Sinnett, and that to
Sinnett he had confessed his scepticism, asking for a sign, a
manifestation, and that one afternoon when they were smoking over their
coffee and cognac after lunch in Sinnett's chambers, then on the third
floor of a house near the Oxford Street end of Bond Street--Forepaugh
was carefully exact in his details--Sinnett smiled mysteriously but said
nothing except to warn him to hold on tight to the table. And up rose
the table, with the litter of coffee cups, cigars, and cognac, up rose
the two chairs, one at either end with Sinnett and Forepaugh sitting on
them, and away they floated out of the open window--it was a June
afternoon--and along Bond Street, above the carriages and the hansoms
and omnibuses and the people as fa