The Under Dog Part 32

"I would," said Jack, gravely and in perfect seriousness, "only the governor's allowance isn't due for a week, and the luncheon took my last cent."

The next day, after business hours, Sam, in the goodness of his heart, called to comfort Jack over the loss of the Monet--a loss as real to the painter as if he had once possessed it--he _had_ in that first glance through the window-pane; every line and tone and brush-mark was his own.

So great was Sam's sympathy for Jack, and his interest in the matter, that he had called upon a real millionaire and had made an appointment for him to come to Jack's studio that same afternoon, in the hope that he would leave part of his wealth behind him in exchange for one of Jack's masterpieces.

Sam found Jack flat on the floor, his back supported by a cushion propped against the divan. He was gloating over a small picture, its frame tilted back on the upright of his easel. It was the Monet!

"Did he loan it to you, old man?" Sam inquired.

"Loan it to me, you quill-driver! No, I bought it!"

"For how much?"

"Full price--six hundred dollars. Do you suppose I'd insult Monet by d.i.c.kering for it?"

"What have you got to pay it with?" This came in a hopeless tone.

"Not a cent! What difference does that make? Samuel, you interest me.

Why is it your soul never rises above dollars and cents?"

"But, Jack--you can't take his property and----"

"I can't--can't I? _His_ property! Do you suppose Monet painted it to please that one-eyed, double-jointed dealer, who don't know a picture from a hole in the ground! Monet painted it for me--me, Samuel--ME--who gets more comfort out of it than a dozen dealers--ME--and that part of the human race who know a good thing when they see it. You don't belong to it, Samuel. What's six hundred or six millions to do with it? It's got no price, and never will have any price. It's a work of art, Samuel--a work of art. That's one thing you don't understand and never will."

"But he paid his money for it and it's not right----"

"Of course--that's the only good thing he has done--paid for it so that it could get over here where I could just wallow in it. Get down here, you heathen, take off your shoes and bow three times to the floor and then feast your eyes. You think you've seen landscapes before, but you haven't. You've only seen fifty cents' worth of good canvas spoiled by ten cents' worth of paint. I put it that way, Samuel, because that's the only way you'll understand it. Look at it! Did you ever see such a sky?

Why, it's like a slash of light across a mountain-pool! I tell you--Samuel--that's a masterpiece!"

While they were discussing the merits of the landscape and the demerits of the transaction there came a knock at the door and the Moneybags walked in. Before he opened his lips Jack had taken his measure. He was one of those connoisseurs who know it all. The town is full of them.

A short connoisseur with a red face--red in spots--close-clipped gray hair that stood up on his head like a polishing brush, gold eyegla.s.ses attached to a wide black ribbon, and a scissored mustache. He was dressed in a faultlessly fitting serge suit enlivened by a nankeen waistcoat supporting a gold watch-chain. The fingers of one hand clutched a palm-leaf fan; the fingers of the other were extended toward Jack. He had known Jack's governor for years, and so a too formal introduction was unnecessary.

"Show me what you've got," he began, "the latest, understand. Wife wants something to hang over the sideboard. You've been doing some new things, I hear from Ruggles."

The tone of the request grated on Jack, who had risen to his feet the moment "His Finance" (as he insisted on calling him afterward to Sam) had opened the door. He felt instantly that the atmosphere of his sanctum had, to a certain extent, been polluted. But that Sam's eyes were upon him he would have denied point-blank that he had a single canvas of any kind for sale, and so closed the incident.

Sam saw the wavering look in his friend's face and started in to overhaul a rack of unframed pictures with their faces turned to the wall. These he placed one after the other on the ledge of the easel and immediately above the Monet, which still kept its place on the floor, its sunny face gazing up at the shopkeeper, his clerk, and bin customer.

"This the newest one you've got?" asked the millionnaire, in the same tone he would have used to his tailor, as he pointed to a picture of a strip of land between sea and sky--one of those uncertain landscapes that a man is righteously excused for hanging upside down.

"Yes," said Jack, with a grave face, "right off the ice."

Sam winced, but "His Finance" either did not hear it or supposed it was some art-slang common to such a place.

"This another?" he inquired, fixing his gla.s.ses in place and hending down closer to the Monet.

"No--that's out of another refrigerator," remarked Jack, carelessly--not a smile on his face.

"Rather a neat thing," continued the Moneybags. "Looks just like a place up in Somesbury where I was born--same old pasture. What's the price?"

"It isn't for sale," answered Jack, in a decided tone.

"Not for sale?"

"No."

"Well, I rather like it," and he bent down closer, "and, if you can fix a figure, I might----"

"I can't fix a figure, for it isn't for sale. I didn't paint it--it's one of Monet's."

"Belongs to you--don't it?"

"Yes--belongs to me."

"Well, how about a thousand dollars for it?"

Sam's heart leaped to his throat, but Jack's face never showed a wrinkle.

"Thanks; much obliged, but I'll hold on to it for a while. I'm not through with it yet."

"If you decide to sell it will you let me know?"

"Yes," said Jack, grimly, and picking up the canvas and carrying it across the room, he turned its face to the wall.

While Sam was bowing the millionnaire out (there was nothing but the Monet, of course, which he wanted now that he couldn't buy it), Jack occupied the minutes in making a caricature of His Finance on a fresh canvas.

Sam's opening sentences on his return, out of breath with his run back up the three flights of stairs, were not complimentary. They began by impeaching Jack's intelligence in terms more profane than polite, and ended in the fervent hope that he make an instantaneous visit to His Satanic Majesty.

In the midst of this discussion--in which one side roared his displeasure and the other answered in pantomime between shouts of his own laughter--there came another knock at the door, and the owner of the Monet walked in. He, too, was in a disturbed state of mind. He had heard some things during the day bearing directly on Jack's credit, and had brought a bill with him for the value of the picture.

He would like the money then and there.

Jack's manner with the dealer was even more lordly and condescending than with the would-be buyer.

"Want a check--when--now? My dear sir! when I bought that Monet was there anything said about my paying for it in twenty-four hours?

To-morrow, when my argosies arrive laden with the spoils of the far East, but not now. I never pay for anything immediately--it would injure my credit. Sit down and let me offer you a cigar--my governor imports 'em and so you can be a.s.sured they are good. By the way--what's become of that Ziem I saw in your window last week? The Metropolitan ought to have that picture."

The one-eyed dealer--Jack was right, he had but one eye--at once agreed with Jack as to the proper ultimate destination of the Ziem, and under the influence of the cigar which Jack had insisted on lighting for him, a.s.sisted by Jack's casual mention of his father--a name that was known to be good for half a million--and encouraged--greatly encouraged indeed--by an aside from Sam that the painter had already been offered more than he paid for it by a man worth millions--under all these influences, a.s.sistances, and encouragements, I say, the one-eyed dealer so modified his demands that an additional twenty-four hours was granted Jack in which to settle his account, the Monet to remain in his possession.

When Sam returned from this second bowing-out his language was more temperate. "You're a Cracker-Jack," was all he said, and closed the door behind him.

During the ten days that followed, Jack gloated over the Monet and staved off his various creditors until his father's semi-monthly remittance arrived. Whenever the owner of the Monet mounted the stairs by appointment and pounded at Jack's door, Jack let him pound, tiptoeing about his room until he heard the anxious dealer's footsteps echoing down the stairs in retreat.

On the day that the "governor's" remittance arrived--it came on the fifteenth and the first of every month--Sam found a furniture van backed up opposite Jack's studio street entrance. The gravity of the situation instantly became apparent. The dealer had lost patience and had sent for the picture; the van told the story. Had he not been sure of getting it he would not have sent the van.

Sam went up three steps at a time and burst into Jack's studio. He found its owner directing two men where to place an inlaid cabinet. It was a large cabinet of ebony, elaborately carved and decorated, and the two furniture men--judging from the way they were breathing--had had their hands full in getting it up the three flights of stairs. Jack was pushing back the easels and pictures to make room for it when Sam entered. His first thought was for the unpaid-for picture.

"Monet gone, Jack?" he asked, glancing around the room hurriedly in his anxiety to find it.