a
laugh which was still in good and hearty condition when No. 14 took its
place in the row.

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

The pictures were fearful, as to color, and atrocious as to drawing and
expression; but the feature which squelched animosity and made them funny
was a feature which could not achieve its full force in a single picture,
but required the wonder-working assistance of repetition. One loudly
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 pictures in a row,
and a different mechanic standing watch in each, the thing gets to be
funny.

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

"Well, they are not the achievement of a single intellect, a single
talent--it takes two to do these miracles. They are collaborations;
the one artist does the figure, the other the accessories. The
figure-artist is a German shoemaker with an untaught passion for art,
the other is a simple hearted old Yankee sailor-man whose possibilities
are strictly limited to his ship, his cannon and his patch of petrified
sea. They work these things up from twenty-five-cent tintypes; they get
six dollars apiece for them, and they can grind out a couple a day when
they strike 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 abortionists
could double their trade and work the women in, if Capt. Saltmarsh could
whirl a horse in, or a piano, or a guitar, in place of his cannon. The
fact is, he fatigues the market with that cannon. Even the male market,
I mean. These fourteen in the procession are not all satisfied. One is
an old 'independent' fireman, and he wants an engine in place of the
cannon; another is a mate of a tug, and wants a tug in place of the ship
--and so on, and so on. But the captain can't make a tug that is
deceptive, and a fire engine is many flights beyond his power."

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

"Yes, and so are the artists. They are perfectly honest men, and
sincere. And the old sailor-man is full of sound religion, and is as
devoted a student of the Bible and misquoter of it as you can find
anywhere. I don't know