mself in his own way?' But when he passed the ladder for the third
time, and saw a fresh layer of indigo putting over the first, his
patience could hold out no longer, and he exclaimed, without stopping
or even looking at the offender: 'There is too much blue!'

'Eh! Do you want anything, sir?' said the sign-painter; but he who had
ventured the criticism was already at a distance.

Again, David passed by. Another glance at the 'Break of Day,' and
another exclamation: 'Too much blue, you blockhead!' The insulted
plasterer turned round to reconnoitre the speaker, and as if
concluding, from his appearance, that he could be no very great
connoisseur, he quietly set to work again, shrugging his shoulders in
wonder how it could possibly be any business of his whether the sky
was red, green, or blue. For the fourth time the unknown lounger
repeated his unwelcome criticism: 'Too much blue!'

The Brussels Wouvermans coloured, but said, in the subdued tone of a
man wishing to conceal anger he cannot help feeling: 'The gentleman
may not be aware that I am painting a sky.' By this time he had come
down from the ladder, and was standing surveying his work with one eye
closed, and at the proper distance from it to judge of its effect; and
his look of evident exultation shewed that nothing could be more
ill-timed than any depreciation of his labours.

'It is because I suppose you do want to paint a sky, that for that
very reason I wished to give you this little piece of advice, and to
tell you that there is too much blue in it.'

'And pray, Mr Amateur, when was there ever a sky seen without blue?'

'I am no amateur; but I tell you once more, that there is too much
blue. And now do as you like; and if you do not think you have enough,
you can put more.'

'This is entirely too bad!' cried the now exasperated sign-painter.
'You are an old fool, and know nothing of painting. I should like to
see you make a sky without blue.'

'I do not say I am a good hand at a sky; but if I did set about it,
there should be no blue.'

'A pretty job it would be!'

'It would look like something, at all events.'

'That is as much as to say mine is like nothing at all.'

'No indeed, for it is very like a dish of spinach, and very like a
vile daub, or like anything else you please.'

'A dish of spinach! a vile daub!' cried the artist of Brabant in a
rage. 'I, the pupil of Ruysdael--I, fourth cousin to Gerard Dow! and
you pretend to know more o