nted a
Smashed Oats or a Hair Tonic poster painted on a range of mountains
or the side of a continent. Well, either of those jobs would have
been Art in its highest form compared to the one you've steered me
against. I can't paint that picture, Billy. You've got to let me
out. Let me try to tell you what that barbarian wants. He had it
all planned out and even a sketch made of his idea. The old boy
doesn't draw badly at all. But, ye goddesses of Art! listen to the
monstrosity he expects me to paint. He wants himself in the centre
of the canvas, of course. He is to be painted as Jupiter sitting
on Olympus, with the clouds at his feet. At one side of him stands
George Washington, in full regimentals, with his hand on the
president's shoulder. An angel with outstretched wings hovers
overhead, and is placing a laurel wreath on the president's head,
crowning him--Queen of the May, I suppose. In the background is to
be cannon, more angels and soldiers. The man who would paint that
picture would have to have the soul of a dog, and would deserve to go
down into oblivion without even a tin can tied to his tail to sound
his memory."

Little beads of moisture crept out all over Billy Keogh's brow. The
stub of his blue pencil had not figured out a contingency like this.
The machinery of his plan had run with flattering smoothness until
now. He dragged another chair upon the balcony, and got White back to
his seat. He lit his pipe with apparent calm.

"Now, sonny," he said, with gentle grimness, "you and me will have
an Art to Art talk. You've got your art and I've got mine. Yours is
the real Pierian stuff that turns up its nose at bock-beer signs and
oleographs of the Old Mill. Mine's the art of Business. This was my
scheme, and it worked out like two-and-two. Paint that president man
as Old King Cole, or Venus, or a landscape, or a fresco, or a bunch
of lilies, or anything he thinks he looks like. But get the paint on
the canvas and collect the spoils. You wouldn't throw me down, Carry,
at this stage of the game. Think of that ten thousand."

"I can't help thinking of it," said White, "and that's what hurts.
I'm tempted to throw every ideal I ever had down in the mire, and
steep my soul in infamy by painting that picture. That five thousand
meant three years of foreign study to me, and I'd almost sell my soul
for that."

"Now it ain't as bad as that," said Keogh, soothingly. "It's a
business proposition. It's so much paint a