som with Mr. Chase, Whistler's eye caught the
fruit and vegetable display in a greengrocer's shop. Making the cabby
maneuver the vehicle to various viewpoints, he finally observed:
"Isn't it beautiful? I believe I'll have that crate of oranges moved
over there--against that background of green. Yes, that's better!" And
he settled back contentedly!

A kindly friend told him of a pleasant spot near London for an
artistic sojourn. "I'm sure you'll like it," he added,
enthusiastically.

"My dear fellow," replied Whistler, "the very fact that you like it is
proof that it's nothing for me."

He went, however, and liked the place, but on the way some of his
canvases went astray. He made such a fuss that the station-master
asked Mr. Chase who was his companion: "Who is that quarrelsome little
man? He's really most disagreeable."

"Whistler, the celebrated artist," Mr. Chase replied.

At that the man approached Whistler and respectfully remarked:

"I'm very sorry about your canvases. Are they valuable?"

"Not yet!" screeched Whistler. "Not yet!"

"I only know of two painters in the world," said a newly introduced
feminine enthusiast to Whistler, "yourself and Velasquez."

"Why," answered Whistler, in dulcet tones, "why drag in Velasquez?"

Mr. Chase once asked him if he really said this seriously.

"No, of course not," he replied. "You don't suppose I couple myself
with Velasquez, do you? I simply wanted to take her down."

* * * * *

Sir John E. Millais, walking through the Grosvenor Gallery with
Archibald Stuart Wortley, stopped longer than usual before the
shadowy, graceful portrait of a lady, "an arrangement in gray, rose,
and silver," and then broke out: "It's damned clever! It's a damned
sight too clever!"

This was his verdict on Whistler's portrait of Lady Meux. Millais
contended that Whistler "never learned the grammar of his art," that
"his drawing is as faulty as it can be," and that "he thought nothing"
of depicting "a woman all out of proportion, with impossible legs and
arms!"

* * * * *

In 1874 there was a suggestion that Whistler's portrait of Carlyle
should be bought for the National Gallery. Sir George Scharf, then
curator of that institution, came to Mr. Graves's show-rooms in Pall
Mall to take a look at it.

When Mr. Graves produced the painting he observed, icily:

"Well, and has painting come to this?"

"I told Mr. Grave