THE POT-BOILER
I
The studio faced north, looking out over a dismal reach of roofs and
chimneys, and rusty fire-escapes hung with heterogeneous garments. A
crust of dirty snow covered the level surfaces, and a December sky
with more snow in it lowered over them.
The room was bare and gaunt, with blotched walls and a stained
uneven floor. On a divan lay a pile of "properties"--limp draperies,
an Algerian scarf, a moth-eaten fan of peacock feathers. The janitor
had forgotten to fill the coal-scuttle over-night, and the cast-iron
stove projected its cold flanks into the room like a black iceberg.
Ned Stanwell, who had just added his hat and great-coat to the
miscellaneous heap on the divan, turned from the empty stove with a
shiver.
"By Jove, this is a little too much like the last act of _Boheme_,"
he said, slipping into his coat again after a vain glance at the
coal-scuttle. Much solitude, and a lively habit of mind, had bred in
him the habit of audible soliloquy, and having flung a shout for the
janitor down the seven flights dividing the studio from the
basement, he turned back, picking up the thread of his monologue.
"Exactly like _Boheme_, really--that crack in the wall is much more
like a stage-crack than a real one--just the sort of crack Mungold
would paint if he were doing a Humble Interior."
Mungold, the fashionable portrait-painter of the hour, was the
favourite object of the younger men's irony.
"It only needs Kate Arran to be borne in dying," Stanwell continued
with a laugh. "Much more likely to be poor little Caspar, though,"
he concluded.
His neighbour across the landing--the little sculptor, Caspar Arran,
humorously called "Gasper" on account of his bronchial asthma--had
lately been joined by a sister, Kate Arran, a strapping girl, fresh
from the country, who had installed herself in the little room off
her brother's studio, keeping house for him with a chafing-dish and
a coffee-machine, to the mirth and envy of the other young men in
the building.
Poor little Gasper had been very bad all the autumn, and it was
surmised that his sister's presence, which he spoke of growlingly,
as a troublesome necessity devolved on him by the inopportune death
of an aunt, was really an indication of his failing ability to take
care of himself. Kate Arran took his complaints with unfailing
good-humour, darned his socks, brushed his clothes, fed him with
steaming broths and foaming milk-punches, and listened with
reverential assent to his interminable disquisitions on art. Every
one in the house was sorry for little Gasper, and the other fellows
liked him all the more because it was so impossible to like his
sculpture; but his talk was a bore, and when his colleagues ran in
to see him they were apt to keep a hand on the door-knob and to
plead a pressing engagement. At least they had been till Kate came;
but now they began to show a disposition to enter and sit down.
Caspar, who was no fool, perceived the change, and perhaps detected
its cause; at any rate, he showed no special gratification at the
increased cordiality of his friends, and Kate, who followed him in
everything, took this as a sign that guests were to be discouraged.
There was one exception, however: Ned Stanwell, who was deplorably
good-natured, had always lent a patient ear to Caspar, and he now
reaped his reward by being taken into Kate's favour. Before she had
been a month in the building they were on confidential terms as to
Caspar's health, and lately Stanwell had penetrated farther, even to
the inmost recesses of her anxiety about her brother's career.
Caspar had recently had a bad blow in the refusal of his _magnum
opus_--a vast allegorical group--by the Commissioners of the
Minneapolis Exhibition. He took the rejection with Promethean irony,
proclaimed it as the clinching proof of his ability, and abounded in
reasons why, even in an age of such crass artistic ignorance, a
refusal so egregious must react to the advantage of its object. But
his sister's indignation, if as glowing, was a shade less hopeful.
Of course Caspar was going to succeed--she knew it was only a
question of time--but she paled at the word and turned imploring
eyes on Stanwell. _Was there time enough?_ It was the one element in
the combination that she could not count on; and Stanwell, reddening
under her look of interrogation, and cursing his own glaring
robustness, would affirm that of course, of course, of course, by
everything that was holy there was time enough--with the mental
reservation that there wouldn't be, even if poor Caspar lived to be
a hundred.
"Vos that you yelling for the shanitor, Mr. Sdanwell?" inquired an
affable voice through the doorway; and Stanwell, turning with a
laugh, confronted the squat figure of a middle-aged man in an
expensive fur coat, who looked as if his face secreted the oil which
he used on his hair.
"Hullo, Shepson--I should say I was yelling. Did you ever feel such
an atmosphere? That fool has forgotten to light the stove. Come in,
but for heaven's sake don't take off your coat."
Mr. Shepson glanced about the studio with a look which seemed to say
that, where so much else was lacking, the absence of a fire hardly
added to the general sense of destitution.
"Vell, you ain't as vell fixed as Mr. Mungold--ever been to his
studio, Mr. Sdanwell? De most ex_ quis_ite blush hangings, and a
gas-fire, choost as natural--"
"Oh, hang it, Shepson, do you call _that_ a studio? It's like a
manicure's parlour--or a beauty-doctor's. By George," broke off
Stanwell, "and that's just what he is!"
"A peauty-doctor?"
"Yes--oh, well, you wouldn't see," murmured Stanwell, mentally
storing his epigram for more appreciative ears. "But you didn't come
just to make me envious of Mungold's studio, did you?" And he pushed
forward a chair for his visitor.
The latter, however, declined it with an affable motion. "Of gourse
not, of gourse not--but Mr. Mungold is a sensible man. He makes a
lot of money, you know."
"Is that what you came to tell me?" said Stanwell, still humorously.
"My gootness, no--I was downstairs looking at Holbrook's sdained
class, and I shoost thought I'd sdep up a minute and take a beep at
your vork."
"Much obliged, I'm sure--especially as I assume that you don't want
any of it." Try as he would, Stanwell could not keep a note of
eagerness from his voice. Mr. Shepson caught the note, and eyed him
shrewdly through gold-rimmed glasses.
"Vell, vell, vell--I'm not prepared to commit myself. Shoost let me
take a look round, vill you?"
"With the greatest pleasure--and I'll give another shout for the
coal."
Stanwell went out on the landing, and Mr. Shepson, left to himself,
began a meditative progress about the room. On an easel facing the
improvised dais stood a canvas on which a young woman's head had
been blocked in. It was just in that happy state of semi-evocation
when a picture seems to detach itself from the grossness of its
medium and live a wondrous moment in the actual; and the quality of
the head in question--a vigorous dusky youthfulness, a kind of
virgin majesty--lent itself to this illusion of vitality. Stanwell,
who had re-entered the studio, could not help drawing a sharp breath
as he saw the picture-dealer pausing with tilted head before this
portrait: it seemed, at one moment, so impossible that he should not
be struck with it, at the next so incredible that he should be.
Shepson cocked his parrot-eye at the canvas with a desultory "Vat's
dat?" which sent a twinge through the young man.
"That? Oh--a sketch of a young lady," stammered Stanwell, flushing
at the imbecility of his reply. "It's Miss Arran, you know," he
added, "the sister of my neighbour here, the sculptor."
"Sgulpture? There's no market for modern sgulpture except
tombstones," said Shepson disparagingly, passing on as if he
included the sister's portrait in his condemnation of her brother's
trade.
Stanwell smiled, but more at himself than Shepson. How could he ever
have supposed that the gross fool would see anything in his sketch
of Kate Arran? He stood aside, straining after detachment, while the
dealer continued his round of exploration, waddling up to the
canvases on the walls, prodding with his stick at those stacked in
corners, prying and peering sideways like a great bird rummaging for
seed. He seemed to find little nutriment in the course of his
search, for the sounds he emitted expressed a weary distaste for
misdirected effort, and he completed his round without having
thought it worth while to draw a single canvas from its obscurity.
As his visits always had the same result, Stanwell was reduced to
wondering why he had come again; but Shepson was not the man to
indulge in vague roamings through the field of art, and it was safe
to conclude that his purpose would in due course reveal itself. His
tour brought him at length face to face with the painter, where he
paused, clasping his plump gloved hands behind his back, and shaking
an admonitory head.
"Gleffer--very gleffer, of course--I suppose you'll let me know when
you want to sell anything?"
"Let you know?" gasped Stanwell, to whom the room grew so glowingly
hot that he thought for a moment the janitor must have made up the
fire.
Shepson gave a dry laugh. "Vell, it doesn't sdrike me that you want
to now--doing this kind of thing, you know!" And he swept a
comprehensive hand about the studio.
"Ah," said Stanwell, who could not keep a note of flatness out of
his laugh.
"See here, Mr. Sdanwell, vot do you do it for? If you do it for
yourself and the other fellows, vell and good--only don't ask me
round. I sell pictures, I don't theorize about them. Ven you vant to
sell, gome to me with what my gustomers vant. You can do it--you're
smart enough. You can do most anything. Vere's dat bortrait of
Gladys Glyde dat you showed at the Fake Club last autumn? Dat little
thing in de Romney sdyle? Dat vas a little shem, now," exclaimed Mr.
Shepson, whose pronunciation became increasingly Semitic in moments
of excitement.
Stanwell stared. Called upon a few months previously to contribute
to an exhibition of skits on well-known artists, he had used the
photograph of a favourite music-hall "star" as the basis of a
picture in the pseudo-historical style affected by the popular
portrait-painters of the day.
"That thing?" he said contemptuously. "How on earth did you happen
to see it?"
"I see everything," returned the dealer with an oracular smile. "If
you've got it here let me look at it, please."
It cost Stanwell a few minutes' search to unearth his skit--a clever
blending of dash and sentimentality, in just the right proportion to
create the impression of a powerful brush subdued to mildness by the
charms of the sitter. Stanwell had thrown it off in a burst of
imitative frenzy, beginning for the mere joy of the satire, but
gradually fascinated by the problem of producing the requisite
mingling of attributes. He was surprised now to see how well he had
caught the note, and Shepson's face reflected his approval.
"By George! Dat's something like," the dealer ejaculated.
"Like what? Like Mungold?" Stanwell laughed.
"Like business! Like a big order for a bortrait, Mr. Sdanwell--dat's
what it's like!" cried Shepson, swinging round on him.
Stanwell's stare widened. "An order for me?"
"Vy not? Accidents _vill_ happen," said Shepson jocosely. "De fact
is, Mrs. Archer Millington wants to be bainted--you know her sdyle?
Well, she prides herself on her likeness to little Gladys. And so
ven she saw dat bicture of yours at de Fake Show she made a note of
your name, and de udder day she sent for me and she says: 'Mr.
Shepson, I'm tired of Mungold--all my friends are done by Mungold. I
vant to break away and be orishinal--I vant to be done by the
bainter that did Gladys Glyde."
Shepson waited to observe the result of this overwhelming
announcement, and Stanwell, after a momentary halt of surprise,
brought out laughingly: "But this _is_ a Mungold. Is this what she
calls being original?"
"Shoost exactly," said Shepson, with unexpected acuteness. "That's
vat dey all want--something different from what all deir friends
have got, but shoost like it all de same. Dat's de public all over!
Mrs. Millington don't want a Mungold, because everybody's got a
Mungold, but she wants a picture that's in the same sdyle, because
dat's _de_ sdyle, and she's afraid of any oder!"
Stanwell was listening with real enjoyment. "Ah, you know your
public," he murmured.
"Vell, you do, too, or you couldn't have painted dat," the dealer
retorted. "And I don't say dey're wrong--mind dat. I like a bretty
picture myself. And I understand the way dey feel. Dey're villing to
let Sargent take liberties vid them, because it's like being punched
in de ribs by a King; but if anybody else baints them, they vant to
look as sweet as an obituary." He turned earnestly to Stanwell. "The
thing is to attract their notice. Vonce you got it they von't gif
you dime to sleep. And dat's why I'm here to-day--you've attracted
Mrs. Millington's notice, and vonce you're hung in dat new
ball-room--dat's vere she vants you, in a big gold panel--vonce
you're dere, vy, you'll be like the Pianola--no home gompleat
without you. And I ain't going to charge you any commission on the
first job!"
He stood before the painter, exuding a mixture of deference and
patronage in which either element might predominate as events
developed; but Stanwell could see in the incident only the stuff for
a good story.
"My dear Shepson," he said, "what are you talking about? This is no
picture of mine. Why don't you ask me to do you a Corot at once? I
hear there's a great demand for them still in the West. Or an Arthur
Schracker--I can do Schracker as well as Mungold," he added, turning
around a small canvas at which a paint-pot seemed to have been
hurled with violence from a considerable distance.
Shepson ignored the allusion to Corot, but screwed his eyes at the
picture. "Ah, Schracker--vell, the Schracker sdyle would take first
rate if you were a foreigner--but, for goodness sake, don't try it
on Mrs. Millington!"
Stanwell pushed the two skits aside. "Oh, you can trust me," he
cried humorously. "The pearls and the eyes very large--the
extremities very small. Isn't that about the size of it?"
Dat's it--dat's it. And the cheque as big as you vant to make it!
Mrs. Millington vants the picture finished in time for her first
barty in the new ball-room, and if you rush the job she won't
sdickle at an extra thousand. Vill you come along with me now and
arrange for your first sitting?"
He stood before the young man, urgent, paternal, and so imbued with
the importance of his mission that his face stretched to a ludicrous
length of dismay when Stanwell, administering a good-humoured push
to his shoulder, cried gaily: "My dear fellow, it will make my price
rise still higher when the lady hears I'm too busy to take any
orders at present--and that I'm actually obliged to turn you out now
because I'm expecting a sitter!"
It was part of Shepson's business to have a quick ear for the note
of finality, and he offered no resistance to Stanwell's friendly
impulsion; but on the threshold he paused to murmur, with a
regretful glance at the denuded studio: "You could haf done it, Mr.
Sdanwell--you could haf done it!"
