f the thing. For in point of fact my friend's appearance was
a perfect study for a humorist. He might have been painted entirely in
different shades of yellow, his complexion of the tender tone of a
fresh Edam cheese, his hair and beard like overgrown dusty stubble, his
grey eyes almost hidden by thick pale eyelashes. And to make the
matter more complete he always dressed himself from top to toe in
sand-coloured cloth for winter, in nankeen for summer, and was fond of
bringing forward and ridiculing his own personal peculiarities by the
most far-fetched comparisons. So, too, in his pictures, where he
regularly and as prominently as possible introduced himself moderately
caricatured, but always in positions that were half-comic and half-sad,
half-expressive of self-contempt, and half of resignation. It seemed as
if he wished to show that he did not take in ill-part, but rather was
the first to laugh over, the practical joke played him by the step-dame
Nature.

"Well, it was Whit Monday, my wife had a party of her friends to
coffee, and the buzz and hum of female voices--which I could hear
through double doors--drove me out. As it was a beautiful afternoon,
with everything in its early freshness, and plenty for me to study on
the banks of the Isar, I determined to invite Van Kuylen to take a
walk. He was living at that time in Theresa-meadows, in a small house
with a room to the north, that he had fitted up for a studio. You
entered it by a little garden, in which of course the inevitable tulips
were not now wanting, but which equally abounded with lilacs and
jessamine. Next you turned into a small court where a fountain was
playing, which the eccentric artist had adorned with a misshapen
Triton, the work of his own hands, for he dabbled in modelling. Then
you came to the studio door, which was seldom open, for Jan painted
away with unwearied diligence from morning to night, and neither sought
amusement nor society.

"I was, therefore, surprised on the present occasion, to find the door
open, and for a moment thought he must have gone out, and that his maid
might be busy arranging the room, when I heard his voice saying to some
one, 'If you are weary, we will leave off for to-day, and besides it is
a high festival. Let us hope your father confessor will not be angry at
our being engaged with such worldly subjects, instead of keeping it
holy!'

"No answer was returned, or at all events none that I heard. I was
amazed.