ng in our psychological loom.

This undercurrent appeared to touch the incident of Horace MacNair, for
it seemed that the old artist had walked over to the Ezekiels that night
on purpose to talk with Auber about making a series of pictures of the
salt marshes along the Passaic River. Old Horace was dead of his heart
before Auber arrived, but the suggestion was repeated by Ezekiel; and
Auber, taking it as something like a dying request from his old master,
besides appreciating its value, set to work at once.

The long reaches of the Passaic tidal lagoon, with their mists and
blowing swamp-grass, are crossed by the trestles of all the railways
which enter New York from the south. It was old Horace MacNair's idea
that this place, more travelled, more unnoticed, and yet more
picturesque, perhaps, than any spot near the metropolis, might be the
making of Auber's reputation. The varied, moody tones of the marsh-land,
forever blending in a pervasive atmosphere of desolate beauty, suited
Auber's peculiar style. Here he would paint what passed in the popular
eye for the dullest commonplace, and would interpret, at the same time,
both this landscape and his little-understood art.

While he worked I frequently visited Auber on his yawl _Houri_, which
was canvassed over for an outdoor studio, and anchored at the point from
which he wished to paint. One day we were tied up to a pile by the
Central Railroad trestle. It was just the heat of the day, and Auber,
stretched out on a deck chair, was taking a sort of siesta. His eyes
were closed, and he had let his cigar go out. Whether it was due to the
light through the colored awning, I was not sure, but I was suddenly
attracted by a dull vacancy that seemed to be forming in his
countenance. It stole upon the features as if they were being slowly
sprinkled with fine dust, blotting their expression into a flat
lifelessness. Then the rush of a train passing over the bridge disturbed
him. With a fleeting look of pain he sat up, glanced first furtively at
me, and then stared hard around.

"Was there a train?" he asked, at length.

"Yes--an express."

"It did not stop here on the bridge for anything?"

"No, of course not."

"Of course not," he agreed, absently. "How long ago?"

"Perhaps two minutes," I said.

He examined his watch. After a while he got up, seeming to pull himself
together with an effort, and began scraping nervously on his picture. I
noticed that the palette-knife