an hour today, and I tell you it's not a good
picture."

Lawson put down his knife and fork. His green eyes flashed fire, he gasped
with rage; but he could be seen imposing calm upon himself.

"It's very interesting to hear the mind of the untutored savage," he said.
"Will you tell us why it isn't a good picture?"

Before the American could answer someone else broke in vehemently.

"D'you mean to say you can look at the painting of that flesh and say it's
not good?"

"I don't say that. I think the right breast is very well painted."

"The right breast be damned," shouted Lawson. "The whole thing's a miracle
of painting."

He began to describe in detail the beauties of the picture, but at this
table at Gravier's they who spoke at length spoke for their own
edification. No one listened to him. The American interrupted angrily.

"You don't mean to say you think the head's good?"

Lawson, white with passion now, began to defend the head; but Clutton, who
had been sitting in silence with a look on his face of good-humoured
scorn, broke in.

"Give him the head. We don't want the head. It doesn't affect the
picture."

"All right, I'll give you the head," cried Lawson. "Take the head and be
damned to you."

"What about the black line?" cried the American, triumphantly pushing back
a wisp of hair which nearly fell in his soup. "You don't see a black line
round objects in nature."

"Oh, God, send down fire from heaven to consume the blasphemer," said
Lawson. "What has nature got to do with it? No one knows what's in nature
and what isn't! The world sees nature through the eyes of the artist. Why,
for centuries it saw horses jumping a fence with all their legs extended,
and by Heaven, sir, they were extended. It saw shadows black until Monet
discovered they were coloured, and by Heaven, sir, they were black. If we
choose to surround objects with a black line, the world will see the black
line, and there will be a black line; and if we paint grass red and cows
blue, it'll see them red and blue, and, by Heaven, they will be red and
blue."

"To hell with art," murmured Flanagan. "I want to get ginny."

Lawson took no notice of the interruption.

"Now look here, when Olympia was shown at the Salon, Zola--amid the
jeers of the Philistines and the hisses of the pompiers, the academicians,
and the public, Zola said: 'I look forward to the day when Manet's picture
will hang in the Louvre opposite the Odalisque of Ingr