The Captain of the Kansas Part 40

It was a students' day, and the galleries were crowded with embryonic geniuses. Courtenay waxed sarcastic anent the rig of Claude's ships; he was laughing at the careless grace with which several of the Baozan maidens were standing in a boat just putting off from a wharf, when a lady cried sharply:

"George, how careless of you! You are sitting on my mahl-stick."

"Sorry, my dear," said a tall thin man, rising from a camp-stool.

"Good gracious, it's Mr. Tollemache," whispered Elsie.

"Gad, so it is. Let's hail him."

Tollemache's solemn face brightened when he heard the hail. He introduced his wife, an eminently artistic being who answered to the name of Jennie. She at once enlisted Elsie in an argument as to atmospheres, but Tollemache drew Courtenay aside.

"Got married when I reached home that trip," he explained. "The wife comes here every Thursday, an' I have to carry the kit. Rather rot, isn't it?"

"It is certainly a change from stoking the donkey-boiler, and bowling over Alaculofs like nine-pins."

"That's what I tell her, but she says the Indians were Boeotian, and the landscape, as I describe it, had the crude coloring of the Newlyn school, which she abominates. She thinks Turner might approve of Suarez in his black and white stripes, but the Guanaco crater reminds her of Gustave Dore, who always exaggerated his tone values. I learn that sort of gabble by heart. Jennie's a good sort, yet sometimes she talks rot--"

"George," said Mrs. Tollemache, "pack up my portfolio. We are going to lunch with your friends. Mrs. Courtenay and I have so much to talk about. We find we think alike on many points. I am delighted to have met your wife, Captain Courtenay. My husband raves about her."

"So do I, ma'am," cried Courtenay, gallantly, yet with a subtle glance at Elsie which told her he meant what he said.

THE END