UPR 
 
EX LIBRJS 
 
COLOR STUDIES 
 
COLOR STUDIES 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS A. JANVIER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 1885 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1885, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 TROWS 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 
 NEW YORK. 
 
CO 
 
 C. A. J. 
 
 OUT OF WHOSE COLOR-BOX THESE STORIES CAME, 
 
 AND TO WHOSE SUGGESTIONS THE BEST PORTIONS 
 
 OF ONE OF THESE STORIES, 
 
 "JAUNE D ANTIMOINE," 
 
 ARE DUE. 
 
There is no Moral in this book. 
 No Purpose is there twixt its covers. 
 
 In truth, whichever way you look 
 You ll only find a Pair of Lovers. 
 
COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 ROSE MADDER. 
 
 OLD MADDER lived on the top floor of 
 an artist rookery down in the Green 
 wich region near enough to the Tenth 
 Street Studio Building for him to say that he 
 lived in an artistic quarter of the town ; un 
 der the roof, as he was wont very reasonably 
 to explain, because that was the only place 
 in any house where a man could get a sky 
 light. Catch him spoiling good painting by 
 working by a side light, he would say. 
 
 There were a lot of other men who had 
 studios in the building. Some of them were 
 old fellows old Cremnitz White and Robert 
 Lake, for instance who had been painting 
 atrociously all their lives, and who all the 
 
COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 while had sincerely believed themselves to 
 be the greatest artists of the age, whom fate, 
 and the public s bad taste, and all the malign 
 forces at work in the world (but their own 
 incapacity), had united to trample on. And 
 with these there were some young fellows 
 Vandyke Brown, little Sap Green, Jaune 
 d Antimoine, McGilp, and two or three 
 more who had not worked long enough to 
 prove very conclusively whether their work 
 was bad intrinsically or bad only because 
 they had yet a good deal to learn. All of 
 these mert snarled and snapped at each other 
 more or less, and abused each other s work, 
 and envied each other s (apparently) less bad 
 fortune ; and, on the whole, were pretty 
 good friends. 
 
 Of them all, old Madder was the only one 
 who had his family with him : and old Mad 
 der s family consisted solely and simply of 
 his daughter Rose. In all Greenwich there 
 was not a more charming little body than 
 Rose Madder ; probably it would be within 
 bounds to say that there was not a more 
 
ROSE MADDER. 3 
 
 charming little body in all New York. She 
 was twenty or thereabouts, and as plump as 
 a little partridge, and as good-humored as 
 the day was long. You must have seen her 
 face at least as good a copy of it as old 
 Madder could make, which is not saying a 
 great deal, to be sure a dozen times in the 
 last dozen years at the Academy exhibi 
 tions ; for Madder was an N. A., and so was 
 one of those whose " line " privileges make 
 the Academy exhibitions so hopelessly exas 
 perating. Rose began to do duty as a model 
 before she was weaned ("Soldier s Widow 
 and Orphaned Child," Rubens Madder, A. 
 N. A., 1864), but the first really recogniza 
 ble portrait of her that saw the light was 
 " The Bread-winner " (1875), in which she 
 figured in an apron, with rolled-up sleeves, 
 making real bread at what a theatrical per 
 son would call a practicable table. Since 
 then she had gone to the Academy regularly 
 every year excepting that sad year when 
 her mother died, and old Madder had not 
 the heart to finish his " Dress-Making at 
 
4 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 Home," nor to do anything at all save 
 mourn the loss that never could be repaired. 
 
 It was generally believed that the reason 
 why Madder s pictures sold for some of 
 them did sell was that Rose, even badly 
 painted, was worth buying. All his friends 
 wanted to borrow her, but Madder would 
 never lend her : she was too valuable to him 
 as stock-in-trade. And with the odd hun 
 dreds which dropped in from his pictures, 
 with some other odd hundreds that he 
 picked up by painting portaits things hard 
 as stones, which he was wont to say, mod 
 estly, were good because he had caught 
 completely the style of his old master, Sully 
 he managed to pick up a living, and to 
 keep the frame-maker from the door. 
 
 It was the prettiest sight in the world to 
 see Rose posing for her father. She had 
 seen too many pictures, and had heard too 
 much picture-talk, not to know that her 
 father s pictures were pretty bad. But she 
 loved her father with all her heart, and she 
 would have died cheerfully rather than let 
 
ROSE MADDER. 5 
 
 him for a single moment suspect that she did 
 not truly believe him to be the greatest artist 
 that ever had lived. And Madder, while 
 yet recognizing the fact that some few men 
 had excelled him in art, found much solace 
 for his soul in his daughter s unlimited ad 
 miration of his greatness. Therefore, when 
 she posed for him, and with much gravity 
 discussed with him how the pose would have 
 been arranged by his great namesake, 
 Rubens (though, in point of fact, Ruben 
 was the name given him by his godfathers 
 and godmothers in baptism) or Sir Joshua 
 or some other of his acknowledged superiors, 
 and all the while talked heartening talk to 
 him, and gave him with due deference to 
 the interests of the pose sweet looks of 
 love out of her gentle blue eyes ; when all 
 this was going on, it was, I repeat, the pret 
 tiest sight in the world. 
 
 Vandyke Brown thought so, certainly ; 
 and that he might enjoy it freely, he made 
 all manner of excuses for coming into Mad 
 der s studio while work was going on. The 
 
COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 most unblushing of all these excuses 
 
 though the one that he found most useful 
 
 was that he wanted to study Madder s style. 
 This was carrying mendacity to a very high 
 pitch indeed, for until within the past year, 
 Brown had been accustomed to cite Mad 
 der s style as being a most shining example 
 of all that was pernicious in the old school. 
 Brown was a League man, of course, and 
 held the Academy in an exceeding great 
 contempt. Yet now, for hours at a stretch 
 and when he had work of his own on hand 
 that needed prompt attention he would sit 
 by old Madder s easel and talk high art with 
 him, and listen calmly to the utterance of 
 old-time heresies fit to make your flesh 
 creep, and hear for the hundredth time Mad 
 der draw the parallel between himself and 
 poor old Ben Haydon, and, worst of all, 
 watch old Madder placidly painting away in 
 a fashion that sent cold creeps down his 
 (Brown s) back, and made him long to take 
 Madder by the shoulders and ram his head 
 through the canvas. All this torment Van- 
 
ROSE MADDER. J 
 
 dyke Brown would undergo for no better 
 reason than that Rose Madder was a dozen 
 feet away on the platform, and by thus sit 
 ting by her father s side he had the joy of 
 hearing her sweet voice and the greater joy 
 of seeing her sweeter smiles. 
 
 What was still more unreasonable in 
 Brown s conduct was his sturdy objection to 
 sharing this mixed pleasure with anybody 
 else. When little Sap Green came in, as he 
 very often did, he would fume and fret, and 
 make himself so disagreeable to the little 
 man who was a good enough little chap in 
 his way, guilty of no other sin than of paint 
 ing most abominably that Rose would have 
 to intervene with all her tact and gentleness 
 to prevent a regular outbreak. And it was 
 still worse when the visitor was McGilp. 
 Brown hated this sleek, slippery person most 
 heartily. He hated his always-smooth, red 
 dish-yellow hair ; he hated the oily smooth 
 ness of his voice ; he hated his silent, cat-like 
 ways ; and, most of all, he hated him for his 
 insolence in venturing to love Rose. 
 
8 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 Moreover, McGilp was Brown s rival in 
 art. He was a League man too, and at the 
 life-class his studies were the only ones which 
 gave Brown any real uneasiness. Their 
 styles were different, but there was very 
 little choice in the quality of their work. 
 And as each would have been the acknowl 
 edged first if the other had been out of the 
 way, there was not much love lost between 
 them. To do Brown justice, though, mere 
 professional rivalry never would have set 
 him at loggerheads with anybody ; it was 
 the other rivalry that made him hate McGilp 
 coupled with a profound conviction that 
 in McGilp s composition there was a thor 
 oughly bad streak that by rights should bar 
 completely his pretensions to Rose s love. 
 
 An ugly piece of work had been done at 
 the life-class in the past season, that never 
 yet had received a satisfactory explanation. 
 The pose was a strong one, and both Brown 
 and McGilp had worked hard over it with 
 Brown ahead. On the morning of the last 
 day of the pose Brown had found his study 
 
ROSE MADDER. 9 
 
 most ingeniously ruined. It was not painted 
 out, but here and there over the whole of it 
 bits had been touched in that took out all its 
 strength, and reduced it simply to the level 
 of the commonplace. The study was spoiled 
 but so cleverly that even the men who had 
 watched Brown at his work were inclined to 
 believe in accordance with the humane 
 custom that makes all of us give a man in a 
 tight place the benefit of every doubt that 
 will make his place tighter that they had 
 overestimated its merits, and that the study 
 had been weak from the start. Brown be 
 lieved most thoroughly though with no 
 more material ground for his belief than the 
 skill with which the changes had been made, 
 and a vague remembrance of seeing McGilp 
 still pottering over his work after the class 
 broke up the day before that McGilp was 
 the man who had played this scurvy trick on 
 him. He kept his suspicions to himself; 
 but, since he held them, it is no great won 
 der that when McGilp was the intruder upon 
 his lounging in old Madder s studio, Rose 
 
10 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 needed all her cleverness in order to stave 
 off a storm ! 
 
 The fact of the matter was that Brown was 
 desperately in love with Rose, and as yet 
 was in a state of anything but pleasing un 
 certainty as to whether there was the least 
 chance in the world that his love would be 
 returned. What made his situation all the 
 more uncomfortable was his profound con 
 viction at least in his lucid intervals that 
 for him to fall in love with anybody was a 
 most serious piece of folly. For all in the 
 world that he had to live upon was the very 
 doubtful save that it certainly always was 
 insufficient income that he made by scrap- 
 work for the illustrated papers, with now 
 and then an extra lift when a sanguine dealer 
 was weak enough to buy one of his little 
 pictures. He had shown this much good 
 sense, at least ; he never yet had tried to 
 paint a big one. He did believe, and he 
 had some ground for believing, that after a 
 while he might do work that would be worth 
 something. In the meantime he sailed close 
 
ROSE MADDER. II 
 
 to the wind, and had anything but an easy 
 time of it. 
 
 But God tempers the wind to the shorn 
 lamb, down Greenwich way. In that mod 
 est region one may get a very filling break 
 fast for twenty cents, and for thirty cents a 
 dinner ; and Brown was a rare hand at mak 
 ing coffee wherewith to mitigate the severity 
 of his early morning loaf of bread. And, on 
 the whole, he did not find this hand-to-mouth 
 sort of life especially uncomfortable. But he 
 had wisdom enough to perceive that, with 
 out something more assured in the way of a 
 living, getting married was a risky under 
 taking. To be sure, he had " prospects." 
 His uncle Mangan, who was a highly re 
 spected leather man down in the Swamp, 
 had neither wife nor child, and Brown felt 
 tolerably certain that some day or other a 
 fair share of the profits of his uncle s leather 
 business would be his. But Uncle Mangan 
 was a tough, cheery, hearty old fellow, who 
 very well might live to be a hundred ; at 
 which time his nephew would be five-and- 
 
12 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 seventy. The thought of an engagement of 
 fifty years duration, ending in a marriage at 
 three-score years and fifteen, was rather ap 
 palling. 
 
 " E is what you call rofe, very rofe, my 
 friend, such long time of waiting for the 
 love," observed Jaune d Antimoine, sympa- 
 thizingly, when, as his custom was, at short 
 intervals, Brown had relieved his mind by 
 confiding his hopes and expectations and 
 doubts to his friend. 
 
 " Rough ! I should rather think so ! If you 
 knew how rough it was, you d wonder that 
 I don t end it all by jumping into the river ! " 
 
 "Ah! but you forget, my poor Brown. I 
 also ave my rose that for I long, my sweet 
 Rose Carthame ; I also am most opeless 
 and most meeserable. And I am even more 
 meeserable than you, for ave I not one 
 wretched rival that most execrable coun 
 tryman of mine, which calls imself the count 
 count ! parbleu ! e is no count Siccatif 
 de Courtray ? I I vill yet eat im alive, 
 vig and all ! " 
 
ROSE M ADD EX. 13 
 
 It will be observed that Brown withheld 
 from his friend his conviction that he also 
 had a rival in McGilp. Brown did not like 
 to admit this fact even to himself. To 
 couple this man, even in his thoughts, with 
 Rose, seemed to him nothing short of an 
 outrageous insult. That Rose had any other 
 feeling than that of toleration for McGilp he 
 could not, he would not, believe ; but he 
 knew that it was useless to close his eyes 
 to the truth that McGilp was in love with 
 Rose, and was bent upon winning her, 
 and that McGilp was not the sort of man 
 to abandon lightly anything that he had 
 fully made up his mind to do. He was a 
 rival ; and in that he possessed force of 
 character that begot persistency of purpose ; 
 he was a dangerous rival. So Brown was 
 in a melancholy way over it all trying 
 to nerve himself to faith in his success in 
 art ; trying to hope that Rose, too, would 
 have faith in him ; trying not to fall into 
 the habit of thinking what pleasant things 
 might happen should his uncle Mangan 
 
14 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 suddenly be called into another and a better 
 world. 
 
 " I SAY, old man, are you going in for the 
 Philadelphia prizes ? " asked little Sap Green, 
 as he tipped a lot of life-studies off a chair 
 in Brown s studio, sat down on the chair, 
 and blew such clouds of cigarette smoke that 
 presently his face shone out through the 
 mist like that of a spectacled cherub. 
 
 "I do wish to heaven, Green, that you 
 wouldn t smoke those vile things in here. 
 If smoking a pipe like a Christian makes you 
 sick, then don t smoke anything." 
 
 " I am," Green continued. " Of course, 
 I know that I don t stand a first chance, for 
 there are several men who can paint better 
 that I can. Somebody else will get the three 
 thousand dollars, I suppose ; but I don t see 
 why I shouldn t get one of the medals. 
 Even the bronze would be worth having. 
 It does a fellow a heap of good in the cata 
 logues, you know, to have a medal after his 
 name." 
 
ROSE MADDER. I 5 
 
 " And you might wear it round your neck 
 on a string. But I don t think that you need 
 a bronze medal, Sap ; you ve enough of the 
 article already for all practical purposes." 
 
 " Don t joke about it, Brown. I m quite 
 serious. You see, I have an idea. Don t 
 whistle that way, it s rude. You ve been 
 associating too much with the boys who 
 hang around Jefferson Market. Yes, I have 
 an idea that I think is bound to win. I m 
 going to do the * Surrender at Yorktown. 
 You know I m pretty good all around fig 
 ures, animals, landscape, and marine. The 
 trouble is to get a subject, inside the condi 
 tions, that will bring them all in. York- 
 town is just the card. Figures of George 
 and Cornwallis or whoever the other fellow 
 was in foreground ; staff in middle dis 
 tance ; group of cavalry close up in front on 
 right ; French ships close up in front on left ; 
 lots of landscape, with tents and masses of 
 troops in background. There you have it ; 
 and if that don t take a medal, it will be be 
 cause the committee has not the sense to 
 
1 6 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 know a good picture when it has one under 
 its nose." 
 
 "True," observed Brown, thoughtfully. 
 " What a lucky thing it is for you, Sappy, 
 that Trumbull didn t take out a copyright ; 
 or, if he did, that it has expired by limi 
 tation." 
 
 "Trumbull, indeed! It s just because 
 Trumbull made such a mess of that subject 
 that I want to show how it ought to be 
 painted. Do you know, Brown, I think 
 that this is the very end that old Temple has 
 in view. He wants these grand subjects, 
 which were ruined in our fathers and grand 
 fathers time, to be taken up by the men of 
 the New School and painted properly. But 
 I do wish that the Philadelphia people had 
 not made this absurd rule above size. What 
 is a man to do with such a subject as the 
 Surrender at Yorktown on a beggarly 
 eight-by-ten-foot canvas ? " 
 
 " You can get an awful lot of paint on a 
 canvas that big, Sap." 
 
 "You are a beast, Brown. When a man 
 
ROSE MADDER. I/ 
 
 comes to you, really in earnest, to tell you 
 of his aspirations and hopes, you answer 
 him simply with low chaff. You haven t a 
 scrap of the real artist feeling in your whole 
 composition." And Sap Green flounced out 
 of the studio, leaving Brown grinning at him. 
 
 But Brown was more in earnest than he 
 had cared to own. He had been thinking 
 very seriously about the Philadelphia prizes, 
 and he had made up his mind to go in for 
 them. He knew that he had no more chance 
 than little Sap Green had for the great prize ; 
 but he also knew, just as Sap knew, that 
 even the lowest of the three medals was 
 worth very earnest striving after. In win 
 ning it there was honor to be gained, and 
 there was money to be made for there was 
 not much doubt but that a medalled picture 
 would find a purchaser and honor and 
 money were what he longed for just now 
 with all his heart ; for these were the means 
 that would compass the end that he lived for 
 Rose. 
 
 And Brown also had an idea. It was not 
 
1 8 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 as big an idea, in square feet, as Sap s ; but 
 it possessed the advantages of having some 
 thing of originality about it, and of being 
 within the scope of his ability. He had the 
 color-study pretty well in shape already, and 
 he believed that he had a good thing. It 
 was a simple picture, and very much inside 
 the eight-by-ten-foot limitation. The scene 
 was a roadway in a dark wood, the fore 
 ground in deepest shadow. Out beneath 
 the arching branches was seen a misty val 
 ley, shimmering in the cool, crisp light of 
 early day, the nearly level sunbeams strik 
 ing brilliantly upon the white tents of a 
 camp. And seen under the bowering trees, 
 but a little beyond them, and in the full 
 brightness of the morning light, was a single 
 figure, brought into strong relief against the 
 dark hills lying in shadow on the valley s 
 farther side. The figure was that of a 
 woman in Quaker dress the soft brown and 
 gray of her shawl and gown in tone with the 
 deeper browns and grays of the foreground 
 and of the misty valley beyond ; a good 
 
KOSE MADDER. 1 9 
 
 high-light in the white kerchief folded across 
 her breast. She was kneeling. Her shawl 
 had fallen back, showing her beautiful head 
 and face beautiful with the beauty not of 
 youth, but of serene holiness on which the 
 sun shone full. Her eyes, moist with tears, 
 were full of a glad thankfulness, and through 
 all the lines of the face and figure was an ex 
 pression of great joy, humbled by devout 
 gratitude to Him who had brought her safely 
 to her journey s end, and so had given her 
 the victory. The title, " Saving Washing 
 ton s Camp at Whitemarsh," gave the key 
 to the story : the woman was Lydia Dar- 
 ragh, who went out from Philadelphia, and 
 gave the warning that enabled the Continen 
 tal army to repulse the assault planned by 
 General Howe. And Brown was deter 
 mined to work on this picture as he never 
 had worked before. 
 
 Naturally, McGilp was not asleep in re 
 gard to the Philadelphia competition ; and 
 he also had his mind set on winning a medal 
 and with it, Rose. His picture was more 
 
20 OLOR STUDIES. 
 
 striking than Brown s, but infinitely less 
 pretentious than Sap Green s stupendous 
 "Yorktown." It was called " Raising the 
 Flag at Stony Point," and in its way it was 
 an uncommonly good thing. The time, as 
 in Brown s picture, was sunrise the sunrise 
 following the night of General Wayne s gal 
 lant assault. In the immediate front of the 
 picture was water, tumbling in little waves 
 which sparkled in the sunlight ; and from 
 this rose sharply the rocky bank, and sheer 
 above the bank an angle of the fort. Stand 
 ing on the parapet, in crisp relief against the 
 green-blue sky, was " Mad Anthony " him 
 self, in the act of running up the Continental 
 flag ; while at his feet a mass of red upon 
 the gray stones of the parapet, and throw 
 ing a rich crimson reflection down upon the 
 broken water below, was the flag of the con 
 quered foe. Over the whole picture was a 
 flood of strong, clear light that emphasized 
 the spirited action and elate pose of the sin 
 gle figure : it was a stirring story of a gallant 
 fight crowned by a well-won victory. Ex- 
 
ROSE MADDER. 21 
 
 cept that the values of the lights and shades 
 were about the same in both, McGilp s and 
 Brown s pictures had absolutely nothing in 
 common ; and while Brown s had the ad 
 vantage in earnestness and depth of poetic 
 feeling, McGilp s, being bold and aggressive, 
 was much more likely to hit the popular 
 taste. 
 
 It was known presently among the artists 
 that both men had entered in the Philadel 
 phia race ; but while McGilp made no secret 
 of his " Stony Point," Brown absolutely re 
 fused to let his subject be known. He kept 
 his door locked, and the few men whom he 
 admitted now and then saw no more of his 
 work than the curtain that hung over it, 
 jealously. 
 
 Not a word passed between Brown and 
 McGilp as to what would be the result should 
 either of them win a medal, but each man 
 knew what the other was working for, and 
 each felt that the other s success meant his 
 own defeat. Not that Brown believed that 
 McGilp ever could win Rose, for he loved 
 
22 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 Rose himself too much to fancy, even for a 
 moment, that she could love McGilp under 
 any circumstances ; but he felt that unless 
 there was enough good in himself to enable 
 him to take one of the three medals, his ca 
 reer as an artist might as well come defi 
 nitely to an end, and his love for Rose with 
 it. McGilp, who was cool-headed enough 
 to see in what direction Rose s inclinations 
 were tending, believed that in his own suc 
 cess, coupled with Brown s failure, rested his 
 only chance of having Rose so much as 
 listen to him. Therefore, both men went at 
 their work with all their strength, and put 
 into it their whole hearts. 
 
 Now Brown was a good deal laughed at 
 for making such a mystery about his picture ; 
 but he knew what he was about, and the 
 laughing did not at all discomfit him. His 
 purpose was a diplomatic one : that he might 
 have a secret in common with Rose. He 
 knew enough of the theory and practice of 
 love-making to know that a bond of this sort 
 counted for a good deal. 
 
R OSE MADDER. 2$ 
 
 As soon as the picture was fairly in his 
 head, he decided that Rose, and Rose alone, 
 should know all about it. So, when he met 
 her coming home from Jefferson Market 
 one morning, he turned back to carry her 
 market-basket, and to tell her the secret that 
 he intended should be his first parallel. 
 And he made such quick work of it that the 
 secret was in her keeping before they had 
 passed the pretty little triangular park where 
 Grove Street and Christopher Street slant 
 into each other. Rose now never looks un 
 der the archway formed by the trees in the 
 little park, and the elm and willow on the 
 sidewalk, that she does not fancy that she 
 sees Lydia Darragh kneeling there, while 
 Grove Street and Christopher Street beyond 
 widen out into the tent-dotted valley of 
 Whitemarsh. 
 
 Having told this secret, Brown had to 
 steady himself sharply that he might not tell 
 the other secret that lay on the very end of 
 his tongue how all his hope of the prize 
 really was hope of Rose herself. Possibly 
 
24 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 Rose had a feeling sense of what he was try 
 ing not to tell, for she talked so much about 
 the picture that he had no chance to talk 
 about anything else. And she was as sym 
 pathizing as even Brown who wanted a 
 good deal of sympathy could desire. 
 
 After that Brown managed pretty often to 
 meet Rose as she came from market ; and 
 Rose did not resent the persistent frequency 
 of these purely chance encounters. She rea 
 soned with herself that it must be a great 
 comfort to him to have anybody to talk with 
 about his work and hopes, and that for her 
 to refuse to listen to him, since he had hap 
 pened to make her his confidante, would be 
 exceedingly ungracious, to say the least of 
 it ; which reasoning, if a trifle too general in 
 its premises, certainly was sound in its con 
 clusions. And by good generalship she al 
 ways managed that his other secret should 
 remain untold though as the days went by 
 she found this to be an increasingly difficult 
 task, that constantly called for more vigorous 
 defensive tactics. And what still further 
 
ROSE MADDER. 2$ 
 
 complicated matters was that Rose grew less 
 and less disposed to usedefensive tactics at all. 
 
 Brown put in honest work on his picture. 
 He spent a couple of days in getting his 
 studies on the border of the Whitemarsh 
 valley ; and he got up morning after morn 
 ing at unconscionable hours, so as to be in 
 the Park at sunrise to study effects of early 
 morning light and mighty puzzling he found 
 them ! Luckily, his sister, Verona, was the 
 type that he needed for Lydia Darragh, and 
 she posed for him with all the good-will in 
 the world ; and nobody knows what a deal 
 of good-will is required in posing until after 
 trying it for a while. 
 
 Under Verona s protection, Rose saw the 
 picture now and then, and so was able to 
 talk about it considerately with Brown in the 
 course of their walks. And these walks 
 came to be a good deal prolonged ; for 
 Brown developed a notable tendency for 
 taking the wrong turns when they were go 
 ing home, so that when they thought they 
 were in Grove Street, they suddenly would 
 
26 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 find themselves drifting down on Abingdon 
 Place. After all, though, these mistakes 
 were not unnatural, when you come to think 
 what a desperately crooked region Green 
 wich is. That people should go astray in a 
 part of the town so hopelessly topsy-turvy, 
 that in it Fourth Street crosses Tenth Street 
 at right angles, need not be a matter for sur 
 prise. What was a little surprising, though, 
 was that it did not occur to Rose that inas 
 much as Verona now knew all about the 
 picture, Brown no longer stood in very ur 
 gent need of herself as a confidante. But it 
 certainly is a fact that this view of the situa 
 tion never once crossed her mind. 
 
 McGilp s " Stony Point/ meanwhile, was 
 getting along pretty well, too. The man had 
 a great deal of facility, and more than a fair 
 allowance of talent ; and he never had worked 
 so hard as he was working now. Little Sap 
 Green, who had a great fondness for know 
 ing all that was going on, paid frequent visits 
 to his studio, and volunteered statements of 
 the results of his observations to Brown : 
 
ROSE MADDER. 2/ 
 
 " It s not as good as * Yorktown, of course, 
 but it s a mighty good picture, Van. He s 
 got in his lights and shades in a way that I 
 don t believe I could improve on myself, and 
 there s lots of tremendous color, and the fig 
 ure is as strong as a house. He s booked for 
 a medal as sure as I am ; and I do hope, old 
 man, that this thing of yours you re so dark 
 about will get the third. Of course, you 
 know, Brown, that I don t a bit like having 
 to run my work against yours in this way. 
 But I can t help it, you know ; and I hope 
 that if I win, and you don t, you wont have 
 any ill-feeling about it. And, I say, Brown, 
 what are you going to do about a frame ? 
 I ve been to see Keyes & Stretcher, and the 
 brutes absolutely refuse to let me have one 
 unless I pay cash down ; and for a ten-by- 
 eight they want eighty dollars. They might 
 as well ask me to pony up a thousand ! I 
 offered Keyes a lien on the picture, and he 
 had the indecency to say that the security 
 undoubtedly was big enough, but it wasn t 
 marketable. Do you know, I m half sorry I 
 
28 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 didn t paint * Washington on his Death-bed 
 on a forty-by-sixty? I ve got a forty-by- 
 sixty frame on my Hector at the Gates of 
 Troy/ and I might just as well have saved 
 money by using it over again. " 
 
 So the summer drifted along pleasantly, 
 and Brown s picture daily came nearer to be 
 ing what he wanted it to be. He knew, of 
 course, that he never could realize his ideal, 
 but he also knew that his picture was intrin 
 sically good. It was a long way ahead of 
 anything that he had ever done. Verona, 
 who was not a bad judge of a picture, ap 
 proved it ; and, what was more to the pur 
 pose, so did Rose. By the end of August it 
 practically was finished, leaving him a fort 
 night and more for that delicate operation 
 known as " going all over it " in the course 
 of which many a capital picture is hopelessly 
 spoiled. 
 
 Brown did not know, when he got up at 
 four o clock, on the morning of the 28th of 
 August, to go out to the Park for a final 
 study of the effects of early sunlight, that 
 
ROSE MADDER. 2Q 
 
 the most eventful day of his life had come ; 
 but it had. He was in such a hurry to get 
 to the Park before the sun rose, that he went 
 without his coffee, contenting himself with 
 munching a bit of bread as he walked from 
 the Fifth Avenue entrance along the shad 
 owy paths in the fresh coolness of the early 
 day. Therefore it came to pass that, when 
 his observations were ended with the satis 
 factory result of showing him that the thing 
 he was in doubt about was right he was 
 aroused to the fact that he was most pro 
 digiously hungry. And, being in a hopeful 
 frame of mind, he decided promptly that he 
 would spend the full value of a half-dollar in 
 getting a good breakfast at the Hungaria, 
 before going home to his work. Not ex 
 actly a headlong extravagance this, yet hav 
 ing in it enough of extravagance to give 
 to the breakfast an agreeable spice of ad 
 venture. 
 
 It was a good while after eight o clock 
 when he got home ; yet, notwithstanding the 
 lateness of the hour, he began the ascent of 
 
3O COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 the stairs leisurely, and with the air of a 
 man, who, having breakfasted well, is con 
 tented with himself and all the world. But 
 at the third step his movements suddenly 
 were vastly accelerated. From one of the 
 floors above him sounded a scream and a 
 cry for help and the voice crying for help 
 was the voice of his Rose ! 
 
 He went up the steps three at a time, 
 hearing as he went yet more screams, and 
 the sound of opening doors, and of hurrying 
 feet, which showed that everybody in the 
 building was aroused. And when he got to 
 the fourth floor he found that his own studio 
 was the centre of the commotion and a 
 pretty kettle of fish he found there ! The 
 easel, with Lydia Darragh upon it, was lying 
 flat upon the floor, and in front of it look 
 ing, as he has since told her, like a delight 
 ful, blue-eyed, enraged lioness, defending 
 her cubs was Rose. She had her big pie- 
 making apron on, and her sleeves were rolled 
 up, and she had dabs of flour all over her 
 (for the life of him he could not keep a grin- 
 
ROSE MADDER. 31 
 
 ning recollection of her father s horrible 
 "Bread-winner" out of his mind), and in 
 1 one of her beautiful, plump arms was a red 
 gash, and all her lovely arm was bloody, and 
 there was blood upon her floury apron and 
 on the floor. A little on one side was old 
 Cremnitz White he was a big old fellow, 
 with lots of strength left in him with his 
 hand twisted so tight in McGilp s collar that 
 McGilp s sleek face was growing purple, and 
 his eyes were protruding ominously ; and 
 old Cremnitz s long gray beard was fairly 
 wagging with righteous rage. Madder was 
 doing his best to make Cremnitz let go for 
 the life was being choked out of McGilp 
 rapidly and little Sap Green was dancing 
 around the room in a perfect whirl of excite 
 ment, and saying at every step, " Oh, dear ! " 
 Three or four other men entered the room 
 at Brown s heels, and stopped just inside 
 the doorway, in wonder of what the dickens 
 it all could mean. 
 
 It was not a time for standing on ceremony. 
 Brown had Rose in his arms in a moment. 
 
32 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 " My darling ! What has happened ? " 
 
 And for answer Rose threw her arms 
 around his neck (the coat with the blood 
 stain on the left shoulder he will cherish to 
 his dying day), and laid her head down on 
 his breast, and sobbed forth : 
 
 "He the wicked villain! Oh! he s 
 ruined it. But but, indeed, I did my best 
 to stop him. To think of poor, dear Lydia 
 Darragh with her two lovely eyes poked out, 
 and the rest of her all cut to pieces ! Oh, 
 the wretch ! Please, please let Mr. White 
 choke him, papa. But no matter if you 
 have lost the medal, dear, you you shall 
 have me all the same. For I love you with 
 all my heart, and I hate him, and I always 
 have hated him. There ! " (From which 
 utterance, especially from that part of it re 
 lating to herself and the medals, the infer 
 ence is a fair one that Verona Brown had 
 chatterboxed away her brother s secret to 
 Rose, so that for ever so long it had been 
 no secret at all !) 
 
 " Now, sir ! What have you got to say 
 
ROSE MADDER. 33 
 
 for yourself? " asked old Madder, sternly. 
 He had managed to drag Cremnitz off by 
 this time, and McGilp stood in one corner 
 of the room gasping and rubbing his throat 
 with his hand. (It was a month and more 
 before he could swallow anything without a 
 painful reminder of the exceeding boniness 
 of Cremnitz s knuckles.) 
 
 " Nothing that will do any good. I m 
 beaten, among you all, and that s the end of 
 it. But I will say this, though : I didn t 
 mean to cut Brown s picture when I came in 
 here. I didn t mean to come in here at all. 
 He went out in a hurry, I suppose, for as I 
 came along the passage I found his door 
 open. I knew that he had gone out, for he 
 waked me up with his confounded noise, and 
 I had heard him go down-stairs. So I knew 
 that he couldn t stop me, and I came in to 
 see his picture. When I found that it was 
 better than mine for it was better, a good 
 deal better I couldn t help what I did. I 
 knew that if either of us got one of the 
 Philadelphia medals, it would not be me ; 
 3 
 
34 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 and I knew what that meant for both of us. 
 You don t know what it would have meant, 
 and I don t intend to tell you. I got into a 
 rage over it all, and the first thing that I 
 knew I had picked up his palette-knife, and 
 had run it through the picture a dozen times. 
 Then she came down-stairs, and saw me 
 through the open door, and what I was do 
 ing, and came in and tried to stop me. I 
 was nearly crazy, I suppose, for ,1 fought 
 with her, and somehow she got that cut in 
 her arm. I don t imagine that any of you, 
 even now, think that I cut her on purpose. 
 Then White came in and grabbed me, and 
 the rest of you after him, and you know 
 what happened better than I do, for he 
 came precious near to murdering me. 
 
 "And, now, what are you going to do 
 with me ? Take me around to the Jefferson 
 Market Police Court, and charge me with 
 aggravated assault and battery ? You can 
 do it if you want to. You are on top." 
 
 There was a rather awkward pause after 
 this direct question. Certainly, the course 
 
ROSE MADDER. 35 
 
 that McGilp suggested was the proper one to 
 take ; but nobody, except Cremnitz White, 
 wanted to take it. For bringing Rose into 
 a police court, and her name into the news 
 papers, was not to be thought of. And so, 
 when Rose her father had washed her arm 
 in Brown s basin, and had Jet Brown help 
 him, and they were tying up the cut in 
 clean paint-rags said to let him go, every 
 body but Cremnitz felt relieved. 
 
 Half swaggering, half slinking, McGilp 
 went out of the room ; and enough de 
 cency remained in him to make him leave 
 town forthwith. His unfinished " Stony 
 Point " went with him. Presumably, he 
 did not complete it, for when the Phila 
 delphia exhibition opened it was not there. 
 As he went down the stairs, Cremnitz White 
 looked reproachfully at Madder, and ex 
 claimed : 
 
 " Ach, mein Gott, Madter ! Fhy dit yoo 
 shoost not let me shoke him, and pe done 
 mit it ? For him shoking woult haf been 
 most goot most goot inteed ! " 
 
36 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 So " Saving Washington s Camp at White- 
 marsh " never entered into the Philadelphia 
 competition at all. It was not, to be sure, 
 quite so badly cut up as Rose in her excite 
 ment had declared it to be ; but it was so 
 far gone that exhibiting it in public was not 
 to be thought of. However, there was a 
 private exhibition of it the next day in 
 Brown s studio, that bore better fruit than 
 if it had gone to Philadelphia, and had taken 
 the three-thousand-dollar Temple prize. 
 
 The organizer of this exhibition was Ve 
 rona, and the unit who attended it was Mr. 
 Mangan Brown. Verona, as has already 
 been hinted, had rather a faculty for telling 
 things, and immediately after the catastrophe 
 had become known to her she set off valor- 
 ously for the Swamp, sought out Uncle 
 Mangan among his kips and hides, and told 
 him precisely what had happened to his 
 nephew, and begged him to come up and 
 look at the picture, with the wreck of which, 
 seemingly, everything had been lost. Then 
 she vigorously urged her brother to make 
 
ROSE MADDER. 37 
 
 Lydia Darragh as presentable as possible, 
 with careful gumming of linen on the back, 
 and with touches of paint on the ragged 
 edges of cut canvas ; and her urging was 
 not wholly unsuccessful. The picture was a 
 sad object still, but enough of its beauty and 
 worth remained, to convince even a very 
 skeptical person, that the man who had 
 painted it had a right to make a profession 
 of art. And Uncle Mangan, who until then 
 had been as skeptical as he well could be in 
 regard to his nephew s self-elected vocation, 
 saw it and was convinced. 
 
 " I have always thought, Van, that you 
 were a fool," said Uncle Mangan, with a 
 cheerful frankness and a most evident sin 
 cerity. " But now I think that the fool of 
 the family has been quite a different person. 
 So the big prize, the one that you didn t 
 expect to get, is three thousand dollars ? 
 Well, you just shall get it, as soon as I can 
 go down town and write the check. But 
 you must paint the picture over again, for I 
 want it. It s the most beautiful thing that 
 
38 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 I ever saw, by gad ! And the directors of 
 our bank last week voted five hundred dol 
 lars to have my portrait painted, to go with 
 the set of presidents, and you shall do that 
 too. And I always have wanted a portrait 
 of your aunt Caledonia, the only sister I 
 have in the world, and you shall do that. 
 And my partner, Gamboge, said only the 
 other day that he wanted some pictures for 
 his new house, and you shall do those. And 
 we want two or three pictures for the new 
 room at the club, and you shall do one of 
 them. And and I ll make it my business, 
 Van, to see that you have all the work you 
 want as long as I live ; and when I die you ll 
 find that you can work or not, just as you 
 please, my boy. And I m proud of you, 
 Van, for the way in which you ve worked 
 along all these years without a scrap of en 
 couragement from those who ought to have 
 encouraged you most. And I m ashamed 
 of myself for the way in which I ve stood off, 
 like a regular priest and Levite, from my 
 own dead brother Cappagh s son. 
 
ROSE MADDER. 39 
 
 "And now where s this little girl who 
 fought and bled for you like such a regular 
 heroine ? For she will be a Brown, too, 
 before long, and I want to give her the kiss 
 that I have a right to give her ; and that 
 God bless her ! she shall have with all my 
 heart ! " 
 
 <c THAT I will be the best man of you, my 
 dear Brown, you know well would be to me 
 much joy. But perceive ! " and Jaune d An- 
 timoine slowly turned himself about, that 
 the worst might be known of the many shab- 
 binesses of his very ancient suit of clothes. 
 "And these are beyond all the best that I 
 do own of all the world, my Brown. What 
 would you ave ? For your wedding, in 
 such clothings as these, I should be one 
 orror; one I do not know the English 
 one e pouvantail. And in the small month 
 that does pass before your wedding comes, 
 what can be for me to do that such vast 
 moneys as must be paid for new clothings 
 shall be mine? No, my good friend, e is 
 
4O COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 not posseeble : though to say such does de 
 stroy my art ! " 
 
 And in view of this very explicit and very 
 reasonable statement of his inability to act 
 in the premises, quite the most notable feat 
 ure of the wedding was Jaune d Antimoine s 
 brilliant discharge of the functions of best 
 man, in a resplendent suit of clothes that 
 made him the delight of Rose Carthame s 
 eyes, and the admiration of all Greenwich 
 for many, many days. 
 
 The wedding was a quiet affair in St. 
 Luke s Church, with a lunch in old Madder s 
 studio afterward at which Uncle Mangan 
 made a speech that was all the better be 
 cause he choked a good deal over it, and 
 had to wipe his eyes with a big silk handker 
 chief two or three times, and that came to an 
 end by his fairly breaking down. And Jaune 
 d Antimoine, clad in his garments of truly 
 Oriental magnificence, gave the health of the 
 bridemaids Rose Carthame and Verona 
 in a most wonderful mingling of French and 
 English ; and Cremnitz White, not trusting 
 
ROSE MADDER. 41 
 
 himself in English at all, made a most elo 
 quent and feeling speech in German, that 
 nobody understood, and that was applauded 
 rapturously ; and old Madder made a speech 
 in which he got miles away from the wed 
 ding into a disquisition upon the nobility 
 and lastingness of Art that was edifying to 
 listen to ; and little Sap Green was the only 
 person present who was thoroughly and 
 persistently melancholy from first to last. 
 There was good reason for Sap Green s 
 melancholy. It was bad enough for him to 
 lose Rose, but it was worse still to know 
 that a blight had fallen upon his hopes of 
 fame : for his " Yorktown " never went to 
 Philadelphia, and his certainty of a medal 
 was dashed utterly, for the sorry reason that 
 he had been unable to pay for the eight-by- 
 ten-foot frame ! 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. 
 
 DOWN Greenwich way that is to say, 
 about in the heart of the city of New 
 York in a room with a glaring south light 
 that made even the thought of painting in it 
 send shivers all over you, Jaune d Antimoine 
 lived and labored in the service of Art. 
 
 By all odds, it was the very worst room in 
 the whole building ; and that was precisely 
 the reason why Jaune d Antimoine had 
 chosen it, for the rent was next to nothing : 
 he would have preferred a room that rented 
 for even less. It certainly was a forlorn- 
 looking place. There was no furniture in it 
 worth speaking of; it was cheerless, deso 
 late. A lot of studies of animals were stuck 
 against the walls, and a couple of finished 
 pictures a lioness with her cubs, and a span 
 of stunning draught-horses stood in one 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 43 
 
 corner, frameless. There was good work in 
 the studies, and the pictures really were 
 capital a fact that Jaune himself recognized, 
 and that made him feel all the more dismal 
 because they so persistently remained un 
 sold. Indeed, this animal-painter was hav 
 ing a pretty hard time of it, and as he sat 
 there day after day in the shocking light, 
 doing honest work and getting no return for 
 it, he could not help growing desperately 
 blue. 
 
 But to-day Jaune d Antimoine was not 
 blue, for of a sudden he had come to be 
 stayed by a lofty purpose and upheld by a 
 high resolve : and his purpose and resolve 
 were that within one month s time he would 
 gain for himself a new suit of clothes ! 
 There were several excellent reasons which 
 together served to fortify him in his exalted 
 resolution. The most careless observer 
 could not fail to perceive that the clothes 
 which he wore and which were incompara 
 bly superior to certain others which he pos 
 sessed but did not wear were sadly shabby ; 
 
44 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 and Vandyke Brown had asked him to be 
 best man at his wedding ; and further and 
 this was the strongest reason of all Jaune 
 d Antimoine longed, from the very depths of 
 his soul, to make himself pleasing in the eyes 
 of Rose Carthame. 
 
 How she managed it none but herself 
 knew; but this charming young person, 
 although the daughter of a widowly exile of 
 France, who made an uncertain living by 
 letting lodgings in the region between south 
 and west of Washington Square, always 
 managed to dress herself delightfully. It is 
 true that feminine analysis might reveal the 
 fact that the materials of which her gowns 
 were made were of the cheapest product of 
 the loom ; yet was feminine envy aroused 
 yea, even in the dignified portion of Fifth 
 Avenue that lies not south but north of 
 Washington Square by the undeniable 
 style of these same gowns, and by their 
 charming accord with the stylish gait and air 
 of the trig little body who wore them. 
 Therefore it was that when Monsieur Jaune 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 45 
 
 graciously was permitted to accompany 
 Mademoiselle Rose in her jaunts into the 
 grand quarter of the town, the propriety of 
 her garments and the impropriety of his own 
 brought a sense of desolation upon his spirit 
 and a great heaviness upon his loyal heart. 
 
 For Jaune loved Rose absolutely to dis 
 traction. To say that he would have laid 
 his coat in the mud for her to walk over 
 does not the condition of the coat being 
 remembered imply a very superior sort of 
 devotion. He would have done more than 
 this : he would have laid himself in the mud, 
 and most gladly, that he might have pre 
 served from contamination her single pair of 
 nice shoes. Even a cool and unprejudiced 
 person, being permitted to see these shoes 
 and he certainly would have been, for Rose 
 made anything but a mystery of them 
 would have declared that such gallant sacri 
 fice was well bestowed. 
 
 The ardor of Jaune s passion was increased 
 as has been common in love matters ever 
 since the world began by the knowledge 
 
46 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 that he had a rival ; and this rival was a 
 most dangerous rival, being none other 
 than Madame Carthame s second-story-front 
 lodger, the Count Siccatif de Courtray. 
 Simply to be the second-story-front lodger 
 carries with it a most notable distinction in 
 a lodging-house ; but to be that and a count 
 too was a combination of splendors that 
 placed Jaune s rival on a social pinnacle and 
 kept him there. Not that counts are rare in 
 the region between west and south of Wash 
 ington Square ; on the contrary, they are 
 rather astonishingly plentiful. But the sort 
 of count who is very rare indeed there is the 
 count who pays his way as he goes along. 
 Now, in the matter of payments, at least so 
 far as Madame Carthame was concerned, 
 the Count Siccatif de Courtray was ex 
 emplary. 
 
 That there was something of a mys 
 tery about this nobleman was undeniable. 
 Among other things, he had stated that he 
 was a relative of the Siccatifs of Harlem 
 the old family established here in New Am- 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. 47 
 
 sterdam in the early days of the Dutch Col 
 ony. Persons disposed to comment invidi 
 ously upon this asserted relationship, and 
 such there were, did not fail to draw atten 
 tion to the fact that the Harlem Siccatifs, 
 without exception, were fair, while the Count 
 Siccatif de Courtray was strikingly dark; 
 and to the further fact that, if the distin 
 guished American family really was akin to 
 the Count, its several members were most 
 harmoniously agreed to give him the cold 
 shoulder. With these malicious whisper 
 ings, however, Madame Carthame did not 
 concern herself. She was content, more 
 than content, to take the Count as he was, 
 and at his own valuation. That he was a 
 proscribed Bonapartist, as he declared him 
 self to be, seemed to her a reasonable and 
 entirely credible statement ; and it certainly 
 had the effect of creating about him a halo 
 of romance. Though not proscribed, Mad 
 ame Carthame herself was a Bonapartist, and 
 a most ardent one ; a fact, it may be ob 
 served, concerning which the Count assured 
 
48 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 himself prior to the avowal of his own politi 
 cal convictions. When, on the 2Oth of 
 April, he came home wearing a cluster of 
 violets in his button-hole, and bearing also a 
 bunch of these Imperial flowers for Madame 
 Carthame, and with the presentation con 
 fessed his own imperialistic faith and touched 
 gloomily upon the sorry reward that it had 
 brought him when this event occurred, 
 Madame Carthame s kindly feelings toward 
 her second-floor lodger were resolved into 
 an abiding faith and high esteem. It was 
 upon this auspicious day that the conviction 
 took firm root in her mind that the Count 
 Siccatif de Courtray was the heaven-sent 
 husband for her daughter Rose. 
 
 That Rose approved this ambitious matri 
 monial project of her mother s was a matter 
 open to doubt ; at least her conduct was such 
 that two diametrically opposite views were 
 entertained in regard to her intentions. On 
 the one hand, Madame Carthame and the 
 Count Siccatif de Courtray believed that she 
 had made up her mind to live in her mother s 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 49 
 
 own second-story front and be a countess. 
 On the other hand, Jaune d Antimoine, 
 whose wish, perhaps, was father to his 
 thought, believed that she would not do any 
 thing of the sort. Jaune gladly would have 
 believed, also, that she cherished matrimo 
 nial intentions in quite a different, namely, 
 an artistic, direction ; but he was a modest 
 young fellow, and suffered his hopes to be 
 greatly diluted by his fears. And, in truth, 
 the conduct of Rose was so perplexing, at 
 times so atrociously exasperating, that a 
 person much more deeply versed in women s 
 ways than this young painter was, very well 
 might have been puzzled hopelessly ; for if 
 ever a born flirt came out of France, that 
 flirt was Rose Carthame. 
 
 Of one thing, however, Jaune was con 
 vinced : that unless something of a positive 
 nature was done, and done speedily, for the 
 improvement of his outward man, his chance 
 of success would be gone forever. Already, 
 Madame Carthame eyed his seedy garments 
 askance ; already, for Rose had admitted the 
 
5O COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 truth of his suspicions in this dismal direc 
 tion, Madame Carthame had instituted most 
 unfavorable comparisons between his own 
 chronic shabbiness and the no less chronic 
 splendor of the Count Siccatif de Courtray. 
 Therefore, it came to pass out of his ab 
 stract need for presentable habiliments, out 
 of his desire to appear in creditable form at 
 Vandyke Brown s wedding, and, more than 
 all else, out of his love for Rose that Jaune 
 d Antimoine registered a mighty oath before 
 high heaven that within a month s time a 
 new suit of clothes should be his ! 
 
 Yet the chances are that he would have 
 gone down Christopher Street to the North 
 River, and still further down, even into a 
 watery grave as he very frequently thought 
 of doing during this melancholy period of 
 his existence had not his fortunes suddenly 
 been irradiated by the birth in his mind of a 
 happy thought. It came to him in this wise : 
 He was standing drearily in front of a ready- 
 made clothing store on Broadway, sadly 
 contemplating a wooden figure clad in pre- 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. 5 1 
 
 cisely the morning suit for which his soul 
 panted, when suddenly something gave him 
 a whack in the back. Turning sharply, and 
 making use of an exclamation not to be 
 found in the French dictionaries compiled 
 for the use of young ladies boarding-schools, 
 he perceived a wooden frame-work, from the 
 lower end of which protruded the legs of a 
 man. From a cleft in the upper portion of 
 the frame-work came the apologetic utter 
 ance, " Didn t mean ter hit yer, boss," and 
 then the structure moved slowly away 
 through the throng. Over its four sides, he 
 observed, were blazoned announcements of 
 the excellences of the garments manufact 
 ured by the very clothing establishment in 
 front of which he stood. 
 
 The thought came idly into his mind that 
 this method of advertising was clumsy, and 
 not especially effective ; followed by the 
 further thought that a much better plan 
 would be to set agoing upon the streets a 
 really gentlemanly-looking man, clad in the 
 best garments that the tailoring people 
 
52 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 manufactured while a handsome sign upon 
 the man s back, or a silken banner proudly 
 borne aloft, should tell where the clothes, 
 were made, and how, for two weeks only, 
 clothes equally excellent could be bought 
 there at a tremendous sacrifice. And then 
 came into his mind the great thought of his 
 life : he would disguise himself by changing 
 his blonde hair and beard to gray, and by 
 wearing dark eye-glasses, and thus disguised 
 he would be that man ! Detection he be 
 lieved to be impossible, for merely dressing 
 himself in respectable clothes almost would 
 suffice to prevent his recognition by even 
 the nearest of his friends. With that prompt 
 decision which is the sure sign of genius 
 backed by force of character, he paused no 
 longer to consider. He acted. With a firm 
 step he entered the clothing establishment ; 
 with dignity demanded a personal interview 
 with its roprietor ; with eloquence present 
 ed to that personage his scheme. 
 
 "You will understand, sare," he said, in 
 conclusion, " that these clothes such as yours 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 53 
 
 see themselves in the best way when they 
 are carried by a man very well made, and 
 who as the air comme il faut. I ave not 
 the custom to say that I am justly that man. 
 But now we talk of affaires. Look at me 
 and see ! " And so speaking, he drew him 
 self up his full six feet, and turned slowly 
 around. There could not be any question 
 about it : a handsomer, a more distinguished- 
 looking man was not to be found in all New 
 York. With the added dignity of age, his 
 look of distinction would be but increased. 
 
 The great head of the great tailoring 
 establishment was visibly affected. Original 
 devices in advertising had been the making 
 of him. He perceived that the device now 
 suggested to him was superior to anything 
 that his own genius had struck out. " It s 
 a pretty good plan," he said, meditatively. 
 " What do you want for carrying it out ?" 
 
 " For you to serve two weeks, I ask but 
 the clothes I go to wear." 
 
 For a moment the tailor paused. In that 
 moment the destinies of Jaune d Antimoine, 
 
54 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 of Rose Carthame, of the Count Siccatif de 
 Courtray, hung in the balance. It was life 
 or death. Jaune felt his heart beating like a 
 trip-hammer. There was upon him a feeling 
 of suffocation. The silence seemed intermi 
 nable ; and the longer it lasted, the more 
 did he feel that his chances of success were 
 oozing away, that the crisis of his life was 
 going against him. Darkness, the darkness 
 of desolate despair, settled down upon his 
 soul. Mechanically he felt in his waistcoat 
 pocket for a five-cent piece that he believed 
 to be there for the stillness, the restful ob 
 livion of the North River were in his mind. 
 His fingers clutched the coin convulsively, 
 thankfully. At least he would not be com 
 pelled to walk down Christopher Street to 
 his death : he could pay his way to eternity 
 in the one-horse car. Yet even while the 
 blackness of shattered hope seemed to be 
 closing him in irrevocably, the glad light 
 came again. As the voice of an angel, 
 sounded the voice of the tailor ; and the 
 words which the tailor spake were these : 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 55 
 
 " Young man, it s a bargain ! " 
 
 But the tailor, upon whom Heaven had 
 bestowed shrewdness to an extraordinary 
 degree, perceived in the plan proposed to 
 him higher, more artistic possibilities than 
 had been perceived in it by its inventor. 
 There was a dramatic instinct, an apprecia 
 tion of surprise, of climax, in this man s 
 mind that he proceeded to apply to the ex 
 isting situation. With a wave of his hand he 
 banished the suggested sign on the walking- 
 advertiser s back, and the suggested silken 
 banner. His plan at once was simpler and 
 more profound. Dressed in the highest 
 style of art, Jaune was to walk Broadway 
 daily between the hours of II A.M. and 2 
 P.M. He was to walk slowly; he was to 
 look searchingly in the faces of all young 
 women of about the age of twenty years ; 
 he was to wear, over and above his garments 
 of price, an air of confirmed melancholy. 
 That was all. 
 
 " But of the advertisement ? Ow - 
 
 " Now, never you mind about the adver- 
 
56 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 tisement, young man. Where that is going 
 to come in is my business. But you can just 
 bet your bottom dollar that I don t intend 
 to lose any money on you. All that you 
 have to do is just what I ve told you ; and 
 to be well dressed, and walk up and down 
 Broadway for three hours every day, and 
 look in all the girls faces, don t strike me as 
 being the hardest work that you might be 
 set at. Now come along and be measured, 
 and day after to-morrow you shall begin." 
 
 As Jaune walked slowly homeward to his 
 dismal studio, he meditated deeply upon the 
 adventure before him. He did not fancy it 
 at all ; but it was the means to an end, and 
 he was braced morally to go through with it 
 without flinching. For the chance of win 
 ning Rose he would have stormed a battery 
 single-handed ; and not a bit more of moral 
 courage would have been needed for such 
 desperate work than was needed for the exe 
 cution of the bloodless but soul-trying pro 
 ject that he had in hand. For the life and 
 spirit of him, though, he could not see how 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. S7 
 
 the tailor was to get any good out of this 
 magnificent masquerading. 
 
 IN one of the evening papers, about a 
 week later, there appeared a half-column 
 romance that quite took Jaune d Antimoine s 
 breath away. It began with a reference to 
 the distinguished elderly gentleman who, 
 during the past week, had been seen daily 
 upon Broadway about the hour of noon ; 
 who gazed with such intense though respect 
 ful curiosity into every young woman s face ; 
 who, in the gay crowd, was conspicuous not 
 less by the elegance of his dress than by his 
 air of profound melancholy. Then briefly, 
 but precisely, the sorrowful story of the 
 
 Marquis de (" out of consideration for 
 
 the nobleman s feelings," the name was with 
 held) was told : how, the son of a peer of 
 France, he had married, while yet a minor, 
 against the wishes of his stern father ; how 
 his young wife and infant daughter had been 
 spirited away by the stern father s orders ; 
 how on his death-bed the father had con- 
 
58 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 fessed his evil deed to his son, and had told 
 that mother and child had been banished to 
 America, where the mother speedily had 
 died of grief, and where the child, though in 
 ignorance of her noble origin, had been 
 adopted by an enormously rich American, 
 about whom nothing more was known than 
 the fact that he lived in New York. The 
 Marquis, the article stated, now was engaged 
 in searching for his long-lost daughter, and 
 among other means to the desired end had 
 hit upon this of walking New York s chief 
 thoroughfare in the faith that should he see 
 his child his paternal instinct would reveal 
 to him her identity. 
 
 "I calculate that this will rather whoop 
 up public interest in our performance," said 
 the tailor, cheerfully, the next day, as he 
 handed the newspaper containing the pleas 
 ing fiction to Jaune. " That s my idea, for 
 a starter. I ve got the whole story ready to 
 come out in sections paid a literary feller 
 twenty dollars to get it up for me. And 
 you be careful to-day when you are inter- 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. S9 
 
 viewed" (Jaune shuddered) "to keep the 
 story up or" (for Jaune was beginning a 
 remonstrance) " you can keep out of it alto 
 gether, if you d rather. Say you must re 
 fuse to talk upon so delicate a subject, or 
 something of that sort. Yes, that s your 
 card. It ll make the mystery greater, you 
 know and I ll see that the public gets the 
 facts, all the same." 
 
 The tailor chuckled, and Jaune was unut 
 terably wretched. He was on the point of 
 throwing up his contract. He opened his 
 mouth to speak the decisive words and 
 shut it again as the thought came into his 
 mind that his misery must be borne, and 
 borne gallantly, because it was all for the 
 love of Rose. 
 
 That day there was no affectation in his 
 air of melancholy. He was profoundly mis 
 erable. Faithful to his contract, he looked 
 searchingly upon the many young women 
 of twenty years whom he met ; and such of 
 them as were possessors of tender hearts 
 grew very sorrowful at sight of the obvious 
 
60 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 woe by which he was oppressed. His woe, 
 indeed, was keen, for the newspaper article 
 had had its destined effect, and he was a 
 marked man. People turned to look at him 
 as people had not turned before ; it was 
 evident that he was a subject of conversa 
 tion. Several times he caught broken sen 
 tences which he recognized as portions of 
 his supposititious biography. His crowning 
 torture was the assault of the newspaper re 
 porters. They were suave, they were surly, 
 they were insinuatingly sympathetic, they 
 were aggressively peremptory but all alike 
 were determined to wring from him to the 
 uttermost the details of the sorrow that he 
 never had suffered, of the life that he never 
 had lived. It was a confusing sort of an ex 
 perience. He began to wonder, at last, 
 whether or not it were possible that he could 
 be somebody else without knowing it ; and 
 if it were, in whom, precisely, his identity 
 was vested. Being but a simple-minded 
 young fellow, with no taste whatever for met 
 aphysics, this line of thought was upsetting. 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. 6 1 
 
 While involved in these perplexing doubts 
 and the crowd at the Fifth Avenue crossing, 
 he was so careless as to step upon the heel 
 of a lady in front of him. And when the 
 lady turned, half angrily, half to receive his 
 profuse apologies, he beheld Mademoiselle 
 Carthame. The face of this young person 
 wore an expression made up of not less 
 than three conflicting emotions : of resent 
 ment of the assault upon the heel of her one 
 pair of good shoes, of friendly recognition of 
 the familiar voice, of blank surprise upon 
 perceiving that this voice came from the lips 
 of a total stranger. She looked searchingly 
 upon the smoked glasses, obviously trying 
 to pry into the secret of the hidden eyes. 
 Jaune s blood rushed up into his face, and 
 he realized that detection was imminent. 
 Mercifully, at that moment the crowd 
 opened, and with a bow that hid his face 
 behind his hat he made good his retreat. 
 During the remaining half hour of his walk, 
 he thought no more of metaphysics. The 
 horrid danger of physical discovery from 
 
62 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 which he had escaped so narrowly filled him 
 with a shuddering alarm. Nor could he 
 banish from his mind the harrowing thought 
 that perhaps, for all his gray hair and painted 
 wrinkles and fine clothes, Rose in truth had 
 recognized him. 
 
 That night an irresistible attraction drew 
 him to the Carthame abode. In the little 
 parlor he found the severe Madame Car 
 thame, her adorable daughter, and the offen 
 sive Count Siccatif de Courtray. Greatly to 
 his relief, his reception was in the usual 
 form : Madame Carthame conducted herself 
 after the fashion of a well-bred iceberg ; 
 Rose endeavored to mitigate the severity of 
 her parent s demeanor by her own affability ; 
 the Count, as much as possible, ignored his 
 presence. Jaune could not repress a sigh of 
 relief. She had not recognized him. 
 
 But his evening was one of trial. With 
 much vivacity, Rose entertained the little 
 company with an account of her romantic 
 adventure with the French nobleman who 
 had come to America in quest of his lost 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 63 
 
 daughter ; for she had read the newspaper 
 story, and had identified its hero with the 
 assailant of her heel. She dwelt with en 
 thusiasm upon the distinguished appearance 
 of the unhappy foreigner ; she ventured the 
 suggestion, promptly and sternly checked 
 by her mamma, that she herself might be 
 the lost child ; she grew plaintive, and ex 
 pressed a burning desire to comfort this 
 stricken parent with a daughter s love ; and, 
 worst of all, she sat silent, with a far-away 
 look in her charming eyes, and obviously 
 suffered her thoughts to go astray after this 
 handsome Marquis in a fashion that made 
 even the Count Siccatif de Courtray fidget, 
 and that filled the soul of Jaune d Antimoine 
 with a consuming jealousy not the less 
 consuming because of the absurd fact that it 
 was jealousy of himself! As he walked 
 home that night through the devious ways 
 of Greenwich to his dismal studio, he seri 
 ously entertained the wish that he never had 
 been born. 
 
 The next day all the morning papers con- 
 
64 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 tained elaborate " interviews " with the Mar 
 quis : for each of the several reporters who 
 had been put on the case, believing that he 
 alone had failed to get the facts, and being 
 upheld by a lofty determination that no 
 other reporter should " get a beat on him," 
 had evolved from his own inner conscious 
 ness the story that Jaune, for the best of 
 reasons, had refused to tell. The stories 
 thus told, being based upon the original 
 fiction, bore a family resemblance to each 
 other ; and as all of them were interesting, 
 they stimulated popular curiosity in regard 
 to their hero to a very high pitch. As the 
 result of them, Jaune found himself the most 
 conspicuous man in New York. During the 
 three hours of his walk he was the centre of 
 an interested crowd. Several benevolent 
 persons stopped him to tell him of fatherless 
 young women with whom they were ac 
 quainted, and to urge upon him the proba 
 bility that each of these young women was 
 his long-lost child. The representatives of a 
 dozen detective bureaus introduced them- 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 65 
 
 selves to him, and made offer of their pro 
 fessional services; a messenger from the 
 chief of police handed him a polite note ten 
 dering the services of the department and 
 inviting him to a conference. It was mad 
 dening. 
 
 But worse of all were his meetings with 
 Rose. As these multiplied, the conviction 
 became irresistible that they were not the 
 result of chance ; indeed, her manner made 
 doubt upon this head impossible. At first 
 she gave him only a passing glance, then a 
 glance somewhat longer, then a look of 
 kindly interest, then a long look of sympa 
 thy ; and at last she bestowed upon him a 
 gentle, almost affectionate, smile that ex 
 pressed, as plainly as a smile could express, 
 her sorrow for his misery and her readiness 
 to comfort him. In a word, Rose Car- 
 thame s conduct simply was outrageous ! 
 
 The jealous anger which had inflamed 
 
 Jaune s breast the night before swelled and 
 
 expanded into a raging passion. He longed 
 
 to engage in mortal combat this stranger 
 
 5 
 
66 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 who was alienating the affection that should 
 be his. The element of absurdity in the sit 
 uation no longer was apparent to him. In 
 truth, as he reasoned, the situation was not 
 absurd. To all intents and purposes he was 
 two people : and it was the other one of him, 
 not himself at all, who was winning Rose s 
 interest, perhaps her love. For a moment 
 the thought crossed his mind that he would 
 adjust the difficulty in his own favor by re 
 maining this other person always. But the 
 hard truth confronted him that every time 
 he washed his face he would cease to be the 
 elderly Marquis, with the harder truth that 
 the fabulous wealth with which, as the Mar 
 quis, the newspapers had endowed him was 
 too entirely fabulous to serve as a basis for 
 substantial life. And being thus cut off 
 from hope, he fell back upon jealous hatred 
 of himself. 
 
 That night the evening paper in which 
 the first mention of the mysterious French 
 nobleman had been made, contained an ar 
 ticle cleverly contrived to give point to the 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. 6? 
 
 mystery in its commercial aspect. The fact 
 had been observed, the article declared, that 
 the nobleman s promenade began and ended 
 at a prominent clothing establishment on 
 Broadway ; and then followed, in the guise 
 of a contribution toward the clearing up of 
 the mystery, an interview with the proprietor 
 of the establishment in question. However, 
 the interview left the mystery just where it 
 found it, for all that the tailor told was that 
 the Marquis had bought several suits of 
 clothes from him ; that he had shown him 
 self to be an exceptionally critical person in 
 the matter of his wearing apparel ; that he 
 had expressed repeatedly his entire satisfac 
 tion with his purchases. In another portion 
 of the paper was a glaring advertisement, in 
 which the clothing man set forth, in an ani 
 mated fashion, the cheapness and desirability 
 of* The Marquis Suit "a suit that " might 
 be seen to advantage on the person of the 
 afflicted French nobleman now in our midst, 
 who had honored it with his approval, and 
 in whose honor it had been named." Upon 
 
68 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 reading the newspaper narrative and its ad 
 vertisement pendent, Jaune groaned aloud. 
 He was oppressed by a horror of discovery, 
 and here, as it seemed to him in his mor 
 bidly nervous condition, was a clew to his 
 duplex identity sufficiently obvious to be ap 
 parent even to a detective. 
 
 THE Count Siccatif de Courtray, as has 
 been intimated, went so far as to fidget while 
 listening to Mademoiselle Carthame s viva 
 cious description of her encounter with the 
 handsome Marquis. Being regaled during 
 the ensuing evening with a very similar nar 
 rative a materially modified version of the 
 events which had aroused in so lively a man 
 ner the passion of jealousy in the breast of 
 Jaune d Antimoine the Count ceased merely 
 to fidget, and became the prey to a serious 
 anxiety. He determined that the next day, 
 quite unobtrusively, he would observe Made 
 moiselle Carthame in her relations with this 
 unknown but dangerously fascinating noble 
 man ; and also that he would give some 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. 69 
 
 attention to the nobleman himself. This 
 secondary purpose was strengthened the 
 next morning, while the Count was engaged 
 with his coffee and newspaper, by his finding 
 in the " Courrier des tats-Unis " a transla 
 tion of the paragraph stating the curious 
 fact that the daily walk of the Marquis be 
 gan and ended at the Broadway tailor-shop. 
 Having finished his breakfast, the Count 
 leisurely betook himself to Broadway. As 
 he slowly strolled eastward, he observed on 
 the other side of the street Jaune d Anti- 
 moine, in his desperately shabby raiment, 
 hurriedly walking eastward also. The Count 
 murmured a brief panegyric upon M. d Anti- 
 moine, in which the words "cet animal" 
 alone were distinguishable. They were near 
 Broadway at this moment, and to the Count s 
 surprise M. d Antimoine entered the cloth 
 ing establishment from which the Marquis 
 departed upon his daily walk. Could it be 
 possible, he thought, that fortune had smiled 
 upon the young artist, and that he was about 
 to purchase a new suit of clothes ? The 
 
7O COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 Count entertained the charitable hope that 
 such could not be the case. 
 
 It was the Count s purpose, in order that 
 he might follow also the movements of Made 
 moiselle Carthame, to follow the Marquis 
 from the beginning to the end of his prome 
 nade. He set himself, therefore, to watch 
 ing closely for the appearance of the grief- 
 stricken foreigner, moving carelessly the 
 while from one shop-window to another that 
 commanded a view of the field. At the end 
 of half an hour, when the Count was begin 
 ning to think that the object of his solicitude 
 was a myth, out from the broad portal of 
 the clothing establishment came the Mar 
 quis in all his glory more glorious, in truth, 
 than Solomon, and more melancholy than 
 the melancholy Jaques. And yet for an in 
 stant the Count Siccatif de Courtray was 
 possessed by the absurd fancy that this 
 stately personage was Jaune d Antimoine ! 
 Truly, here was the same tall, handsome 
 figure, the same easy, elegant carriage, the 
 same cut of hair and beard. But the resem- 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 7 1 
 
 blance went no further, for beard and hair 
 were gray almost to whiteness, the face was 
 pale and old, and the clothes, so far from 
 being desperately seedy, were more resplen 
 dent even than the Count s own. No, the 
 thought was incredible, preposterous, and 
 yet the Count could not discharge it from his 
 mind. He stamped his foot savagely ; this 
 mystery was becoming more interesting than 
 pleasing. 
 
 In the crowd that the Marquis drew in 
 his wake, as he slowly, sadly sauntered up 
 Broadway, the Count had no difficulty in 
 following him unobserved. The situation 
 was that of the previous day, only it was in 
 tensified, and therefore, to its hero, the more 
 horrible. The benevolent people with stray 
 fatherless young women to dispose of were 
 out in greater force ; the detectives were 
 more aggressive ; the newspaper people 
 were more persistent ; the general public 
 was more keenly interested in the whole 
 performance. And Rose most dreadful of 
 all was more outrageous than ever ! The 
 
72 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 Count grew almost green with rage during 
 the three hours that he was a witness of this 
 young woman s scandalous conduct. A 
 dozen times she met the Marquis in the 
 course of his walk, and each time that she 
 met him she greeted him with a yet more 
 tender smile. A curious fact that at first 
 surprised, then puzzled, then comforted the 
 Count was the very obvious annoyance 
 which these flattering attentions caused 
 their recipient. Evidently, he persistently 
 endeavored to evade the meetings which 
 Rose as persistently and more successfully 
 endeavored to force upon him. Within the 
 scope of M. de Courtray s comprehension 
 only one reason seemed to be sufficient to 
 explain the determination on the part of the 
 Marquis to resist the advances of a singu 
 larly attractive young woman, whose good 
 disposition toward him was so conspicuously, 
 though so irregularly, manifested : a fear of 
 recognition. And this reason adjusted itself 
 in a striking manner to the queer notion 
 that had come into his mind that the Mar- 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 73 
 
 quis was an ideal creation, whose reality was 
 Jaune d Antimoine. The thought was ab 
 surd, irrational, but it grew stronger and 
 stronger within him and became an assured 
 conviction when, shortly after the prome 
 nade of the Marquis had ended, Jaune came 
 forth from the clothing-store in his normal 
 condition of shabbiness and youth. The 
 Count was not in all respects a praiseworthy 
 person, but among his vices was not that of 
 stupidity. Without any very tremendous 
 mental effort he grasped the fact that his 
 rival had sold himself into bondage as a 
 walking advertisement, and, knowing this, a 
 righteous exultation filled his soul. Jaune s 
 destiny, so far as Mademoiselle Carthame 
 was concerned, he felt was in his power : 
 and he was perplexed by no nice doubts as 
 to the purpose to which the power that he 
 had gained should be applied. 
 
 Untroubled by the knowledge that his 
 secret was discovered, Jaune entered upon 
 the last day of his martyrdom. It was the 
 most agonizing day of all. The benevolent 
 
74 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 persons, the reporters, the detectives, the 
 crowd surging about him, drove him almost 
 to madness. He walked as one dazed. And 
 above and over all he was possessed by a 
 frenzy of jealousy that came of the offen 
 sively friendly smiles which Rose bestowed 
 upon him as she forced meetings upon him 
 again and again. It was with difficulty that 
 he restrained himself from laying violent 
 hands upon this bogus Marquis who falsely 
 and infamously had beguiled away from him 
 the love for which he gladly would have 
 given his life. Only the blood of his despic 
 able rival, he felt, would satisfy him. He 
 longed to find himself with a sword in his 
 hand on a bit of smooth turf, and the villain 
 ous Marquis over against him, ready to be 
 run through. The thought was so delight 
 ful, so animating, that involuntarily he made 
 a lunge and had to apologize confusedly to 
 the elderly gentleman whom he had poked in 
 the back with his umbrella. 
 
 At last the three hours of torture, the last 
 of his two weeks of hateful servitude, came 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. ?$ 
 
 to an end. Pale beneath his false paleness, 
 haggard beyond his false haggardness of 
 age, he entered the clothing-store and once 
 more was himself. With a gladness un 
 speakable he washed off his wrinkles and 
 washed out the gray from his hair and beard ; 
 with a sense of infinite satisfaction that, a 
 fortnight earlier, he would not have believed 
 possible, he resumed his shabby old clothes. 
 Had he chosen to do so, he might have 
 walked away in the new and magnificent 
 apparel which he now fairly had earned ; 
 but just at present his loathing for these fine 
 garments was beyond all words. 
 
 The tailor fain would have had the mas 
 querade continue longer, for, as he frankly 
 stated, " The Marquis Suit " was having atre- 
 mendous sale. But Jaune was deaf not only 
 to the tailor s blandishments, but to his offers 
 of substantial cash. "Not for the millions 
 would I be in this part of the Marquis for one 
 day yet more," he said firmly. And he ad 
 ded, " I trust to you in honor, sare, that not 
 never shall my name be spoken in this affair." 
 
76 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 "Couldn t speak it if I wanted to, my 
 dear boy. It s a mystery to me how you re 
 able to say it yourself ! Well, I d like you 
 to run the * Marquis for another week ; but 
 if you won t, you won t, I suppose, so there s 
 an end of it. I m sorry you haven t enjoyed 
 it. I have. It s been as good a thing as I 
 ever got hold of. Now give me your ad 
 dress and I ll have your clothes sent to 
 you. Don t you want some more ? I don t 
 mind letting you have a regular outfit if 
 you want it. One good turn, you know 
 and you ve done me a good turn, and that s 
 a fact." 
 
 But Jaune declined this liberal offer, and 
 declined also to leave his address, which 
 would have involved a revelation of his name. 
 It was a comfort to him to know that his 
 name was safe a great comfort. So the 
 garments of the forever-departed Marquis 
 were but up in a big bundle, and Jaune jour 
 neyed homeward to his studio in Greenwich 
 bearing his sheaves with him in a 
 Bleecker Street car. 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. 77 
 
 " WELL, you are a cheeky beggar, d Anti- 
 moine," said Vandyke Brown, cheerfully, the 
 next morning, as he came into Jaune s studio 
 with a newspaper in his hand. "So you 
 are the Marquis who has been setting the 
 town wild for the last week, eh ? And who 
 did you bet with ? And what started you 
 in such a crazy performance, anyway ? Tell 
 me all about it. It s as funny Good 
 heavens! d Antimoine, what s the matter? 
 Are you ill?" For Jaune had grown 
 deathly pale and was gasping. 
 
 " I do not know of what it is that you 
 talk," he answered, with a great effort. 
 
 " Oh, come now, that s too thin, you know. 
 Why, here s a whole column about it, telling 
 how you made a bet with somebody that you 
 could set all the town to talking about you, 
 and yet do it all in such a clever disguise 
 that nobody would know who you really 
 were, not even your most intimate friends. 
 And I should say that you had won hand 
 somely. Why, I ve seen you on Broadway 
 a dozen times myself this last week, and I 
 
7 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 never had the remotest suspicion that the 
 Marquis was you. I must say, though," 
 continued Brown, reflectively, and looking 
 closely at Jaune, " that it was stupid of me. 
 I did think that you had a familiar sort of 
 look ; and once, I remember, it did occur to 
 me that you looked astonishingly like your 
 self. It it was the clothes, you see, that 
 threw me out. Where ever did you get 
 such a stunning rig ? I don t believe that 
 I d have known you dressed like that, even 
 if you hadn t been gray and wrinkled. But 
 tell me all about it, old man. It must have 
 been jolly fun ! " 
 
 " Fun ! " groaned Jaune ; " it was the de 
 spair ! " And then, his heart being very full 
 and his longing for sympathy overpowering, 
 Jaune told Brown the whole story. " But 
 what is this of one bet, my dear Van," he 
 concluded, " I do not of the least know." 
 
 " Well, here it all is in the paper, anyway. 
 Calls you a distinguished animal-painter, 
 and alludes to your strikingly vigorous 
 " Lioness and Cubs " and powerful " Dray 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 79 
 
 Horses " at the last spring exhibition of the 
 Society of American Artists. Must be some 
 body who knows you, you see, and some 
 body who means well by you, too. There s 
 nothing at all about your being an advertise 
 ment ; indeed, there s nothing in the story 
 but a good joke, of which you are the hero. 
 It s an eccentric sort of heroism, to be sure ; 
 but then, for some unknown reason, people 
 never seem to believe that artists are rational 
 human beings, so your eccentricity will do 
 you no harm. And it s no end of an adver 
 tisement for you. Whoever wrote it meant 
 well by you. And, by Jove ! I know who 
 it is! It s little Cont6 Crayon. He s a 
 good-hearted little beggar, and he likes you 
 ever so much, for I ve heard him say so; 
 but how he ever got hold of the story, and 
 especially of such a jolly version of it, I don t 
 see." 
 
 At this moment, by a pleasing coincidence, 
 Conte Crayon himself appeared with the de 
 sired explanation. " You see," he said, 
 " that beast of a Siccatif de Courtray hunted 
 
8O COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 me up yesterday and told me the yarn about 
 you and the slop-shop man. He wanted me 
 to write it up and publish it, as a joke, he 
 said ; but it was clear enough that he was in 
 ugly earnest about it. And so, you see, I 
 had to rush it into print in the way I chose 
 to tell it which won t do you a bit of harm, 
 d Antimoine in order to head him off. The 
 blackguard meant to get you into a mess, 
 and if I d hung fire he d have told somebody 
 else about it, and had the real story pub 
 lished. Of course, you know, there s noth 
 ing in the real story that you need be 
 ashamed of ; but if it had been told, you 
 certainly would have been laughed at, and 
 nasty people would have said nasty things 
 about it. And as there wasn t any time to 
 lose, I had to print it first and then come 
 here and explain matters afterward. And 
 what I ve got to say is this : Just you cheek 
 it out and say that it was a bet, and that 
 you won it ! Brown and I will back you up 
 in it, and so will the slop-shop man. I ve 
 been to see him this morning, and he is so 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 8 1 
 
 pleased with the way that * The Marquis 
 Suit is selling, and with the extra free ad 
 vertisement that he has got out of my arti 
 cle, that he s promised to adopt the bet ver 
 sion in his advertisement in all the papers. 
 He is going to advertise that The Marquis 
 Suit is so called because everybody who 
 wears it looks like a marquis just as you 
 did. This cuts the ground right from under 
 the Count s feet, you see ; for nobody d be 
 lieve him on his oath if they could help it. 
 
 " And now I must clear out. I ve got a 
 race at Jerome Park at two o clock. It s all 
 right, d Antimoine ; I assure you it s all 
 right but I should advise you to punch the 
 Count s head, all the same." 
 
 Vandyke Brown thought that it was all 
 right, too, as he talked the matter over with 
 Jaune after little Conte Crayon had gone. 
 But Jaune refused to be comforted. So far 
 as the public was concerned he admitted that 
 Conte Crayon s story had saved him, but 
 he was oppressed by a great dread of what 
 might be the effect of the truth upon Rose. 
 
82 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 For Jaune d Antimoine was too honest a 
 gentleman even to think of deceiving his 
 mistress. He must tell her the whole story, 
 without reserve, and as she approved or dis 
 approved of what he had done must his 
 hopes of happiness live or die. 
 
 " Better have it out with her to-day, and 
 be done with it," counselled Brown. 
 
 " Ah! it is well for you to speak of a 
 urry, my good Van ; but it is not you who 
 go to execute your life. No, I ave not the 
 force to go to-day. To-day I go to make a 
 long walk. Then this night I sleep well. 
 To-morrow, in the morning, do I go to 
 affront my destiny." And from this resolu 
 tion Jaune was not to be moved. 
 
 Yet it was an unfortunate resolution, for 
 it gave the Count Siccatif de Courtray time 
 and opportunity for a flank movement. In 
 the Count s breast rage and astonishment 
 contended for the mastery as he contem 
 plated the curious miscarriage of his news 
 paper assault. He had chosen this line of 
 attack partly because his modesty counselled 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 83 
 
 him to keep his own personality in the back 
 ground, partly because the wider the pub 
 licity of his rival s disgrace the more com 
 plete would that disgrace be. But as his 
 newspaper ally had failed him, he took the 
 campaign into his own hands ; that is to say, 
 he hurried to tell the true story, and a good 
 deal more than the true story, to Rose and 
 Madame Carthame. 
 
 Concerning its effect upon Rose, he was in 
 doubt; but its effect upon Madame Car 
 thame was all that he could desire. This 
 severe person instantly took the cue that the 
 Count dexterously gave her by affecting to 
 palliate Jaune s erratic conduct. He urged 
 that, inasmuch as M. d Antimoine was a 
 conspicuous failure as an artist, for him to 
 engage himself to a tailor as a walking adver 
 tisement, so far from being a disgrace to him, 
 was greatly to his credit. And Madame 
 Carthame promptly and vehemently asserted 
 that it wasn t. She refused to regard what 
 he had done in any other light than that of 
 a crime. She declared that never again 
 
84 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 should his offensive form darken her door. 
 Solemnly she forbade Rose from recogniz 
 ing him when in the future they should 
 chance to meet. And then she abated her 
 severity to the extent of thanking the Count 
 with tears in her eyes for the service that he 
 had done her in tearing off this viper s dis 
 guise. Naturally, the Count was charmed 
 by Madame Carthame s energetic indigna 
 tion. He perceived that his unselfish inves 
 tigations of the actions of Monsieur Jaune 
 were bearing excellent fruit. Already, as 
 he believed, the way toward his own happi 
 ness was smooth and clear. As the Count 
 retired from this successful conference, he 
 laughed softly to himself : nor did he pause 
 in his unobtrusive mirth to reflect that those 
 laugh best who laugh last. 
 
 And thus it came to pass that when Jaune, 
 refreshed by sound slumber and a little 
 cheered by hope, presented himself the next 
 morning at Madame Carthame s gates, fate 
 decreed that Rose herself should open the 
 gates to him in response to his ring and 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. 85 
 
 in her own proper person should tell him 
 that she was not at home. In explanation 
 of this obviously inexact statement she an 
 nounced to him her mother s stern decree. 
 Being but a giddy young person, however, 
 and one somewhat lacking in fit reverence of 
 maternal authority, she added, on her own 
 account, that in half an hour or so she was 
 going up Fourth Street to the Gansevoort 
 market, and that Fourth Street was a public 
 thoroughfare, upon which M. d Antimoine 
 also had a perfect right to walk. 
 
 In the course of this walk, while Jaune 
 gallantly carried the market-basket, the story 
 that Rose already had heard from the Count 
 Siccatif de Courtray was told again but 
 told with a very different coloring. For 
 Mademoiselle Carthame clearly perceived 
 how great the sacrifice had been that Jaune 
 had made for her sake, and how bravely, 
 because it was for her sake, it had been 
 made. There was real pathos in his voice ; 
 once or twice he nearly broke down. Possi 
 bly it was because she did not wish him to 
 
86 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 see her eyes that she manifested so marked 
 an interest in the shop windows as they 
 walked along. 
 
 "And so that adorable Marquis was 
 unreal ? " queried Mademoiselle Carthame 
 sadly, and somewhat irrelevantly, when 
 Jaune had told her all. 
 
 "He was not adorable. He was a dis 
 gusting beast ! " replied M. d Antimoine sav 
 agely. 
 
 " I I loved him ! " answered Rose, turn 
 ing upon Jaune, at last, her black eyes. 
 They did not sparkle, as was their wont, but 
 they were wonderfully lustrous and soft. 
 
 Jaune looked down into the market-basket 
 and groaned. 
 
 " And and I love him still. I think, I 
 I hope, that he will live always in my heart." 
 
 The voice of Mademoiselle Carthame trem 
 bled, and her hand grasped very tightly the 
 bag of carrots that they had been unable to 
 make a place for in the basket : they were 
 coming back from the market now. 
 
 Jaune did not look up. For the life of 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 87 
 
 him he could not keep back a sob. It was 
 bitter hard, he felt, that out of his love for 
 Rose should come love s wreck ; and, harder 
 yet that the rival who had stolen her from 
 him should be himself ! Through the mist 
 of his misery he seemed to hear Rose laugh 
 ing softly. Could this be so ? Then, in 
 deed, was the capstone set upon his grief ! 
 
 "Jaune!" 
 
 He started, and so violently that a cab 
 bage, with half a dozen potatoes after it, 
 sprang out of the basket and rolled along 
 the pavement at their feet. His bowed head 
 rose with a jerk, and their eyes met full. In 
 hers there was a look half mocking, that as 
 he gazed changed into tenderness ; into his, 
 as he saw the change and perceived its mean 
 ing, there came a look of glad delight. 
 
 * As though you could deceive me ! Why, 
 of course, I knew you from the very first ! " 
 
 Then they collected the potatoes and the 
 cabbage and walked slowly on, and great 
 happiness was in their hearts. 
 
 The world was a brighter world for Jaune 
 
88 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 d Antimoine when he gave into Rose s hand 
 the market-basket on her own door-step, and 
 turned reluctantly away. But there still 
 were clouds in it. Rose had admitted that 
 two things were necessary before getting 
 married could be thought of at all seriously : 
 something must be done by which the nose 
 of the Count Siccatif de Courtray would be 
 disjointed ; something must be done to as 
 sure Madame Carthame that M. d Anti 
 moine, in some fashion at least a little re 
 moved from semi-starvation, could main 
 tain a wife. It was certain that until these 
 things were accomplished Madame Car- 
 thame s lofty resolution to transform her 
 daughter into a countess, and her stern dis 
 approbation of Jaune as a social outcast, 
 never would be overcome. 
 
 As events turned out, it was the second of 
 these requirements that was fulfilled first. 
 
 MR. BADGER BRUSH was a very rich sport 
 ing man, whose tastes were horsey, but whose 
 heart was in the right place. It was his de- 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 89 
 
 light to make or to back extraordinary 
 \vagers. Few New Yorkers have forgotten 
 that very queer bet of his that resulted in 
 putting high hats on all the Broadway tele 
 graph poles. When Mr. Brush read the 
 story of Jaune d Antimoine s wager, there 
 fore, he was greatly pleased with its origi 
 nality ; and when, later in the day, he fell in 
 with little Cont Crayon at Jerome Park, he 
 pressed that ingenious young newspaper 
 man for additional particulars. And know 
 ing the whereabouts of Mr. Badger Brush s 
 heart, Conte Crayon did not hesitate to tell 
 the whole story winding up with the 
 pointed suggestion that inasmuch as the 
 hero of the story was an animal-painter of 
 decided, though as yet unrecognized, ability, 
 Mr. Brush could not do better than manifest 
 his interest in a practical way by giving him 
 an order. The sporting man rose to the 
 suggestion with a commendable promptness 
 and warmth. 
 
 " I don t care a blank if it wasn t a bet," 
 he said, heartily. "That young man has 
 
90 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 pluck, and he deserves to be encouraged. 
 I ll go down and see him to-morrow, and I ll 
 order a portrait of Celeripes ; a life-size, 
 thousand-dollar portrait, by Jove ! Cele 
 ripes deserves it, after the pot of money he 
 brought meat Long Branch, and your friend 
 deserves it too. And I have some other 
 horses that I want painted, and some dogs 
 he paints dogs, I suppose ? And I know a 
 lot of other fellows who ought to have their 
 horses painted, and I ll start them along at 
 him. I ll give him all the painting he can 
 handle in the next ten years. For it was a 
 bet, you see, after all. Didn t he back his 
 cleverness in disguise against the wits of the 
 whole town ? And didn t the slop-shop man 
 put up the stakes ? And didn t he just win 
 in a canter ? I should rather think he did ! 
 Of course it was a bet, and a mighty good 
 one at that. Gad ! Crayon, it s the best 
 thing that s been done in New York for 
 years. It s what I call first-class cheek. I 
 couldn t have done it better, sir, myself! " 
 Thus it fell out that half an hour after 
 
JAUNE D ANTIAIOINE. 9 1 
 
 Jaune got back to his studio from that mem 
 orable walk to the Gansevoort market, he 
 had the breath-taking-away felicity of book 
 ing a thousand-dollar order, and of receiving 
 such obviously trustworthy assurances of 
 many more orders that his wildest hopes of 
 success in a moment were resolved into sub 
 stantial realities. When he was alone again 
 he certainly would have believed that he had 
 been dreaming but for the fact that Mr. 
 Badger Brush had insisted upon paying half 
 the price of the picture down in advance ; 
 for whatever this good-hearted, horsey gen 
 tleman did, he did thoroughly well. The 
 crisp notes, more than Jaune ever had seen 
 together in all his life before save once, 
 when he took a dealer s cheque for ten dol 
 lars to a bank and looked through the wire 
 screen while the bank man haughtily cashed 
 it lay on the table where Mr. Badger Brush 
 had left them ; and their blissful presence 
 proved that his happiness was not a dream, 
 but real. 
 
 From the corner into which, loathingly, 
 
92 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 he had kicked it, he drew forth the bundle 
 containing "The Marquis Suit." With a 
 certain solemnity he resumed these garments 
 of price in which he had suffered so much 
 torture, and, being clad, boldly presented 
 himself to Madame Carthame with a formal 
 demand for her daughter s hand. And in 
 view of the sudden and prodigious change 
 that had come over M. d Antimoine s fort 
 unes, almost was Madame Carthame per 
 suaded that the matrimonial plans which she 
 had laid out for her daughter might be 
 changed. Yet did she hesitate before an 
 nouncing that their Median and Persian 
 quality might be questioned : for the hope 
 that Rose might be a countess lay very close 
 to Madame Carthame s heart. However, 
 her determination was shaken, which was a 
 great point gained. 
 
 And presently for Jaune s star was 
 triumphantly in the ascendant it was com 
 pletely destroyed. The instrument of its 
 destruction was Mr. Badger Brush s groom, 
 Stumps. 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. 93 
 
 Stumps was a talkative creature, and 
 whenever he came down to Jaune s studio, 
 as he very often did while the portrait of 
 Celeripes was in progress, he had a good 
 deal to say over and above the message that 
 he brought, as to when the horse would be 
 free for the next "sitting "in the paddock 
 at Mr. Brush s country place where Jaune 
 was painting him. And Jaune, who was one 
 of the best-natured of mortals, usually suf 
 fered Stumps to talk away until he was tired. 
 
 " You might knock me down with a wisp 
 of hay, you might, indeed, sir," said the 
 groom one morning a fortnight after the 
 picture had been begun the day but one, 
 in fact, before that set for Vandyke Brown s 
 wedding. " Yes, sir," he continued, " with 
 a wisp of hay, or even with a single straw ! 
 Here I ve been face to face with my own 
 father s brother s son, and I ve put out my 
 hand to him, and he s turned away short and 
 pretended as he didn t know me and went 
 off! And they tells me at his lodgin , for I 
 follered him a-purpose to find him out, that 
 
94 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 he calls hisself a Frenchman, and says as how 
 his name which it is Stumps, and always 
 has been is Count Sikativ de Cortray ! " 
 
 Jaune s palette and brushes fell to the floor 
 with a crash. "Is it posseeble that you do 
 tell me of the Comte Siccatif de Courtray ? 
 Are you then sure that you do not make one 
 grand meestake ? Is it im truly that you 
 ave seen ? " 
 
 "Him, sir? Wy, in course it s him. 
 Haven t I knowed him ever since he wasn t 
 higher n a hoss s fetlock ? Don t I tell you 
 as me and him s fust cousins ? Him ? In 
 course it s him the gump ! " 
 
 " Then, my good Stump, you will now tell 
 me of this wonder all." 
 
 " It s not much there is to tell, sir, and 
 wat there is isn t to his credit. His father 
 was my father s brother. My father was in 
 the hoss line out Saint John s Wood way 
 in Lunnon, you know, sir and his father 
 lived in our street and was a swell barber. 
 Uncle d married a French young ooman as 
 was dressmakin and had been a lady s maid ; 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. 95 
 
 it s along of his mother that he gets his 
 Frenchness, you see. He was an only son, 
 he was, and they made a lot of him dressin 
 him fine, and coddlin him, and sendin him 
 to school like anythink. Uncle was doin a 
 big trade, you see, and makin money fast. 
 Then, when he was a young fellow of twenty 
 or so, and after he d served at barberin* with 
 his father for a couple of years, he took 
 service with young Lord Cadmium as had 
 his cousin livin in a willa down our way, 
 and came to uncle s to be barbered fre 
 quent. And wen Lord Cadmium went 
 sudden-like over to the Continent, wishin to 
 give his cousin the slip, havin got sick of 
 her, Stumps he went along. That s a mat 
 ter of ten years ago, sir, and blessed if I ve 
 laid eyes on him since until I seed him here 
 in New York to-day. Uncle died better n 
 two year back, aunt havin died fust, and he 
 left a tidy pot of money to Stumps ; and I 
 did hear that Stumps, who d been barberin 
 in Paris, had giv up work when he got the 
 cash and had set up to be a gentleman, but 
 
96 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 I didn t know as he d set up to be a count 
 too. The like of this I never did see ! " 
 
 " And you are, then, sure, you will swear, 
 my good Stump, that this are the same 
 man ? " 
 
 " Swear, sir ! I ll swear to it high and low 
 and all day long ! But I must be goin , sir. 
 You will please to remember that the hoss 
 will be ready for you at ten o clock to-morrow 
 mornin , sharp." 
 
 Jaune rushed down to Vandyke Brown s 
 studio for counsel as to whether he should go 
 at once to the Count s lodgings and charge 
 him with fraud to his face, or should make 
 the charge first to Madame Carthame. But 
 Brown was out. Nor was he in old Madder s 
 studio, though about this time he was much 
 more likely to be there than in his own. 
 Old Madder said that Brown had taken Rose 
 over to Brooklyn, to the Philharmonic, and 
 he believed that they were going to dinner 
 at Mr. Mangan Brown s afterward, and would 
 not be in till late ; and he seemed to be 
 pretty grumpy about it. 
 
JAUNE irANTIMOINE. 9/ 
 
 Jaune fumed and fretted away what was 
 left of the afternoon and a good part of the 
 evening. At last Brown and Rose came 
 home, and Brown, with a very bad grace, 
 suffered himself to be led away from old 
 Madder s threshold. To do him justice, 
 though, when he had heard the story that 
 Jaune had to tell, he was all eagerness. His 
 advice was to make the attack instantly ; 
 and without more words they set off to 
 gether, walking briskly through the chill air 
 of the late October night. 
 
 As they were passing along Macdougal 
 Street midway between Bleecker and Hous 
 ton, in front of the row of pretty houses with 
 verandas all over their fronts Jaune sud 
 denly gripped Brown s arm and drew him 
 quickly within one of the little front yards 
 and into the shadow of the high iron steps. 
 
 "Look!" he said. 
 
 On the other side of the street, in the 
 
 light of the gas-lamp that stands in the 
 
 centre of the block, was the Count himself. 
 
 For the moment that he was beneath the 
 
 7 
 
98 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 gas-lamp they saw him clearly. His face 
 was set in an expression of gloomy sternness ; 
 his rapid, resolute walk indicated a definite 
 purpose ; he carried a little bundle in his 
 hand. 
 
 " What a villain he looks ! " whispered 
 Brown. " Upon my soul, I do believe that 
 he is going to murder somebody ! " 
 
 " Ah ! the vile animal ! We will pursue," 
 answered Jaune, also in a whisper. 
 
 Giving the Count a start of a dozen house 
 fronts, they stepped out from their retreat 
 and followed him cautiously. He walked 
 quickly up Macdougal Street until he came 
 out on Washington Square. For a moment 
 he paused by Sam Wah s laundry and 
 then turned sharply to the left along Fourth 
 Street. At a good pace he crossed Sixth 
 Avenue, swung around the curve that Fourth 
 Street makes before beginning its preposter 
 ous journey northward, went on past the 
 three little balconied houses whose fronts are 
 on Washington Place, and so came out upon 
 the open space where Washington Place and 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. 99 
 
 Barrow Street and Fourth Street all run 
 into each other. It was hereabouts that 
 Wouter Van Twiller had his tobacco farm a 
 trifle less than two centuries ago. 
 
 The Count stopped, as though to get his 
 bearings ; and while they waited for him to 
 go on, Brown nudged Jaune to look at the 
 delightfully picturesque frame house, set in 
 a deep niche between two high brick houses, 
 with the wooden stair elbowing up its out 
 side to its third story. It came out wonder 
 fully well in the moonlight, but Jaune was 
 too much excited even to glance at it. 
 
 At the next group of corners where 
 Fourth Street crosses Grove and Christopher 
 Streets at the point where they go sidling 
 into each other along the slanting lines of 
 the little park the Count halted again. 
 Evidently, the exceeding crookedness of 
 Greenwich Village puzzled him as well it 
 might. Presently a Christopher-Street car 
 came along and set him straight ; and thus 
 guided, he started resolutely westward, as 
 though heading for the river. 
 
100 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 " Is it posseeble that he goes imself to 
 drown ? " suggested d Antimoine. 
 
 " No such good luck," Brown answered 
 shortly. 
 
 Coming out on what used to be called 
 " the Strand "West Street they call it now 
 the Count bore away from the lights of 
 the Hoboken Ferry and from the guarded 
 docks of the White Star and Anchor lines of 
 steamers, skirted the fleet of oyster boats, 
 and so came to the quiet pier at the foot of 
 Perry Street, where the hay barges unload. 
 This pier runs a long way out into the river, 
 for it is a part of what was called Sapo- 
 kamikke Point in Indian times. The Count 
 stopped and looked cautiously around him, 
 but his pursuers promptly crouched behind 
 a dray and became invisible. 
 
 As he went out upon the pier, though, 
 they were close upon his heels walking 
 noiselessly over the loose hay and keeping 
 themselves hidden in the shadow of the 
 barges and behind the piles of bales. At 
 the very end of the pier he stopped. Jaune 
 
JA UNE D A NTIMOINE. 
 
 and Brown, hidden by a bale of hay, were 
 within five feet of him. Their hearts were 
 beating tremendously. There had been no 
 tragical purpose in their minds when they 
 started, but it certainly did look now as 
 though they were in the thick of a tragedy. 
 In the crisp October moonlight the Count s 
 face shone deathly pale ; they could see the 
 fingers of his right hand working convul 
 sively ; they could hear his labored breath 
 ing. Below him was the deep, black water, 
 lapping and rippling as the swirl of the tide 
 sucked it into the dark, slimy recesses among 
 the piles. In its bosom was horrible death. 
 The Count stepped out upon the very edge 
 of the pier and gazed wofully down upon 
 the swelling waters. His dismal purpose no 
 longer admitted of doubt. Involuntarily the 
 two followed him until they were close at his 
 back. Little as they loved him, they could 
 not suffer him thus despairingly to leave the 
 world. 
 
 But instead of casting himself over the 
 edge of the pier, the Count slowly raised the 
 
IO2 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 hand that held the bundle, with the obvious 
 intention of throwing the bundle and what 
 ever was the evil secret that it contained 
 into the river s depths. Quick as thought, 
 Brown had seized the upraised arm, and 
 Jaune had settled upon the other arm with a 
 grip like a vise. 
 
 " No you don t, my boy ! Let s see what 
 it is before it goes overboard. Hold fast, 
 d Antimoine ! " 
 
 The Count struggled furiously, but hope 
 lessly. 
 
 " It s no use. You may as well give in, 
 Stumps ! " 
 
 As Brown uttered this name the Count 
 suddenly became limp. The little bundle 
 that he had clutched tightly through the 
 struggle dropped from his nerveless hand, 
 and fell open as it struck the ground. And 
 there, gleaming in the moonlight, a brace 
 of razors, a stubby brush, a stout pair of 
 shears, lay loosely in the folds of a barber s 
 jacket ! 
 
 And this was the sorry climax to the bril- 
 
JAUNE D ANTIMOINE. 1 03 
 
 liant romance of the proscribed Bonapartist, 
 the Count Siccatif de Courtray ! 
 
 Jaune, who was a generous-hearted young 
 fellow, was for setting free his crest-fallen 
 rival at once, and so having done with him. 
 Brown took a more statesmanlike view of 
 the situation. " We will let him go after he 
 has owned up to Madame Carthame what a 
 fraud he is," he said. The Count winced 
 when this sentence was pronounced, but he 
 uttered no remonstrance. The shock of 
 the discovery had completely demoralized 
 him. 
 
 It was after midnight when they reached 
 Madame Carthame s dwelling, and Rose her 
 self, with her hair done up in curl papers, 
 opened the door for them. When she recog 
 nized the three visitors and perceived that 
 the Count was in custody, and at the same 
 moment remembered her curl papers, on 
 her face the gaze of astonishment and the 
 blush of maidenly modesty contended for the 
 right of way. 
 
 Madame Carthame fairly was in bed as 
 
IO4 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 was evident from the spirited conversation 
 between herself and her vivacious daughter, 
 that was perfectly audible through the fold 
 ing doors which separated the little parlor 
 from her bedroom. It was evident, also, 
 that she was indisposed to rise. However, 
 her indisposition was overcome, and in the 
 course of twenty minutes or so she appeared 
 arrayed in a frigid dignity and a loose wrap 
 per. Rose, meanwhile, had taken off her 
 curl papers, and Jaune regarded her tumbled 
 hair with ecstasy. 
 
 The tribunal being assembled, the prisoner 
 was placed at the bar and the trial began. 
 It was an eminently irregular trial, looking 
 at it from a legal point of view, for the verbal 
 evidence all was hearsay. But it also was 
 extra legal in that it was brief and decisive. 
 Brown gave his testimony in the shape of a 
 repetition of the story that Jaune had told 
 him had been told by Mr. Badger Brush s 
 groom ; and when this was concluded, Jaune 
 produced the jacket, razors, shears, and 
 shaving brush, and stated the circumstances 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. 10$ 
 
 under which they had been found. Then 
 the prosecution rested. 
 
 Being questioned by the court that is to 
 say, by Madame Carthame in his own de 
 fence, the Count replied gloomily that he 
 hadn t any. When I saw that horse fel 
 low," he said, "I knew that I was likely to 
 get into trouble, and that was the reason 
 why I wanted to get rid of these things. 
 And now the game is up. It is all true. I 
 was a barber. I am not a count. My real 
 name is Stumps." 
 
 Then it was that Madame Carthame, bliss 
 fully ignorant of the fact that she had neg 
 lected to remove her night-cap, stood up in 
 her place, with her wrapper gathered about 
 her in a statuesque fashion, and in a tragic 
 tone uttered the single word : 
 
 "Sortez!" 
 
 And the Count went ! 
 
 Out, out into the chill and gloom of night 
 went the false Count, never to return ; and 
 with him went Madame Carthame s fond 
 hope that her daughter would be a countess, 
 
106 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 which also was the last barrier in the way of 
 Jaune d Antimoine s love. Perceiving that 
 the force of fate inexorably was pressing 
 upon her, Madame Carthame still in her 
 night-cap bestowed upon Rose and Jaune 
 the maternal blessing in a manner that, even 
 allowing for the night-cap, was both stately 
 and severe. 
 
 As at Vandyke Brown s wedding Jaune 
 d Antimoine was radiantly magnificent in 
 " The Marquis Suit," adding splendor to the 
 ceremony and rendering himself most pleas 
 ing in the eyes of Rose Carthame ; so a 
 month later, he was yet more radiant when 
 he wore the famous suit again, in the church 
 of Saint Vincent de Paul, and was himself 
 married. 
 
 Conte" Crayon brought Mr. Badger Brush 
 down to the wedding, and the groom came 
 too, and the tailor got wind of it and came 
 without being asked and had to be implored 
 not to work it up into an advertisement, as 
 he very much wanted to do. Mrs. Vandyke 
 
JAUNE D^ANTIMOINE. IO/ 
 
 Brown, just home from her wedding journey, 
 was the first after the kiss of Madame 
 Carthame had been sternly bestowed to kiss 
 the bride ; and Mr. Badger Brush irrever 
 ently whispered to Conte Crayon that he 
 wished, by gad ! he had her chance ! 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. 
 
 THE firm was in leather, down in the 
 Swamp, and Mr. Orpiment used to ride 
 down-town every morning from his house in 
 Bank Street, regular as the almanac, in a 
 Bleecker Street car. His house was one of 
 those eminently respectable, high-stooped 
 dwellings, between Fourth Street and the 
 old Greenwich Road quite the court end of 
 what used to be Greenwich village three 
 score years or so ago, and about as pleasant 
 an abiding-place as you will find to-day in all 
 the city of New York. This house was un 
 necessarily large for Mr. Orpiment s family 
 for the whole of his family was himself; 
 but as he seemed to be entirely satisfied with 
 it, no one ventured to suggest to him that he 
 had better move. Indeed, there were few 
 people in the world who, knowing Mr. Orpi- 
 
ORPIMENT &> GAMBOGE. 
 
 ment, would have willingly ventured to sug 
 gest to him anything whatever, for he was 
 not a person who took suggestions kindly. 
 In point of fact, he usually took them with a 
 snap. 
 
 When young Orpiment, in a suggestive 
 sort of way, observed modestly from under 
 his blonde mustache that his uncle would be 
 doing a good thing if he would rescind the 
 edict under which he, young Orpiment, was 
 going through the form of learning the 
 leather business, and would permit him to 
 betake himself to the study of Art when 
 young Orpiment made this suggestion, I say, 
 Mr. Orpiment fell into such a rage that his 
 counting-house large though it was and 
 small though he was would not hold him ; 
 in his wrath he strode out into his ware 
 house, among the kips and hides, and used 
 language in their presence strong enough to 
 tan them. The upshot of the matter was, 
 that young Orpiment was given twenty-four 
 hours in which to make up his mind whether 
 he would stick to leather and his bread and 
 
IIO COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 butter, or be an infernal idiot (such was Mr. 
 Orpiment s unparliamentary language) and 
 starve among his paint-pots. And young 
 Orpiment, his crisp blonde hair fairly brist 
 ling with determination, every muscle in his 
 large, well-built body tense with energy, in 
 something less than twenty-four seconds 
 elected for starvation and the pots of paint. 
 
 But for all his high temper and defiant 
 way of dealing with things, there was one 
 thing that Mr. Orpiment could not deal with 
 defiantly. One morning only a few weeks 
 after this battle royal of the paint-pots had 
 been fought to the astonishment of all the 
 people in Bank Street, his front door did not 
 open at precisely twenty-seven minutes after 
 eight o clock ; and the conductor of the 
 Bleecker Street car concluded that in some 
 mysterious way he must have got ahead of 
 his schedule, because at 8.30 Mr. Orpiment 
 was not standing, like a block-signal, with 
 his neatly-folded umbrella thrust out straight 
 before him, at the Bank Street crossing ; 
 and Mr. Gamboge got into a nervous fluster, 
 
OR PI ME N T & GAMBOGE. Ill 
 
 and said that he knew that something must 
 be wrong, when the counting-house clock 
 struck nine and Mr. Orpiment did not make 
 his appearance, as was his invariable custom, 
 between the sixth stroke and the seventh. 
 And something was wrong : Mr. Orpiment 
 was dead. 
 
 As all through his life Mr. Orpiment had 
 been setting himself to go off, like an alarm 
 clock, at definitely determined points in the 
 future, so did he carry this habit into the 
 testamentary disposition of his estate. His 
 will, so to speak, was double-barrelled. The 
 first barrel went off immediately upon his 
 decease, and, as it were, set the alarm. 
 After devising certain small legacies to a 
 few friends and dependants, to be paid out 
 of accruing income, and a round ten thousand 
 dollars in Government bonds to the Protes 
 tant Home for Half-Orphans an institution 
 in which, for many years, Mr. Orpiment had 
 taken the liveliest interest, probably be 
 cause in his early life he had been a half- 
 orphan himself, and knew how very disa- 
 
112 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 greeable it was ; after these rational and 
 commendable bequests, the will took a new 
 departure, and the rest of it was as eccentric 
 and as arbitrary as ever Mr. Orpiment him 
 self had been : and that is saying a good deal. 
 It declared that all the rest, residue, and 
 remainder of Mr. Orpiment s estate, real and 
 personal, whatsoever and wheresoever, was 
 given, devised, and bequeathed unto his ex 
 ecutors Mr. Gamboge and Mr. Mangan 
 Brown were the executors in trust : to col 
 lect and receive the income thereof, and to 
 pay thereout all necessary charges and ex 
 penses, and to invest the surplus income each 
 year, and to add the same to the principal of 
 Mr. Orpiment s estate, and thus to reinvest 
 and accumulate for the period of five years 
 after Mr. Orpiment s decease ; and at the 
 expiration of the said period, to hold the 
 said principal, with its additions and accu 
 mulations, upon the further trusts set out in 
 a codicil to this Mr. Orpiment s will, which 
 codicil would be found in the top drawer of 
 the small fire-proof safe in Mr. Orpiment s 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. 1 13 
 
 library ; and (here was the queerest part of 
 all) that until the expiration of the said five 
 years this codicil was not to be opened under 
 any circumstances whatsoever. The will 
 further provided that until the five years 
 should be ended Mr. Gamboge should carry 
 on the business of the firm under the firm 
 name ; and, in an extremely peremptory 
 clause, he was forbidden to give employ 
 ment, in any shape or way, to young Orpi- 
 ment. The leather business and the art 
 business, the will stated dryly, were inharmo 
 nious ; and inasmuch as young Orpiment 
 had chosen the latter, the testator wished to 
 leave him entirely free to carry it on undis 
 turbed by the claims of the former upon his 
 thought and time. 
 
 With this parting shot the will ended, as a 
 sailor would say, short without giving, save 
 as such was to be found in the tidy legacy 
 to the Protestant half-orphans, the least hint 
 or suggestion as to what was to become of 
 Mr. Orpiment s fortune at the end of the 
 five years ; without throwing the faintest 
 8 
 
114 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 ray of light upon the mystery that all this 
 waiting and trust-creating involved. It was 
 as queer a will as ever went to probate ; in 
 deed, had there been anybody besides young 
 Orpiment to contest it, the probabilities are 
 that it would not have been admitted to 
 probate at all. But young Orpiment was Mr. 
 Orpiment s sole kinsman ; and, as matters 
 stood just then, his pride was so thoroughly 
 up that had he been called upon to choose 
 between breaking the will and breaking his 
 own neck, he would have chosen the latter 
 alternative with all possible celerity. 
 
 And so, although he was dead and buried, 
 Mr. Orpiment had arranged matters in such 
 a fashion that for these five years at least it 
 by no means could be said with any sort of 
 truthfulness that he had perished from off 
 the earth. 
 
 ABOUT this time there was not a happier 
 family in all Greenwich, nor anywhere else, 
 for that matter, than the Browns. Mr. Man- 
 gan Brown, in the large-hearted way that be- 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. 11$ 
 
 came his big body and big voice, and acting, 
 of course, with the warm approval of Miss 
 Caledonia, had urged Vandyke and Rose so 
 heartily to bring the baby and come and live 
 with them, that a refusal really was quite out 
 of the question. So it came to pass that Mr. 
 Mangan Brown, without the perceptible quiv 
 er of so much as an eyelash, signed a check 
 big enough to pay for one of those delight 
 ful houses, with gardens in front of them, 
 and broad verandas all the way up to their 
 third stories, in West Eleventh Street 
 which also is a part of Greenwich village, as 
 may be mentioned for the information of the 
 mass of New Yorkers who know nothing of 
 New York. 
 
 And in this pretty home, one bright May 
 day, when the trees and gardens were glad 
 in their fresh loveliness of delicious green, 
 they all harmoniously took up their abode. 
 Mr. Mangan Brown had the second-story 
 front, and Miss Caledonia and Verona had 
 the two second-story backs, and the third 
 floor was given over to the baby and Van- 
 
Il6 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 dyke and Rose. If anything could make 
 brighter the bright spring-time, it was the 
 sight of Rose and the baby on the veranda 
 in the early morning sunlight Rose, prettier 
 than ever, laughing delightedly at the baby s 
 earnest efforts to reach out over the row of 
 flower-pots and clutch the swaying branches 
 of the trees. Before going to his big studio 
 on Fourteenth Street, to begin the work of 
 the day, Van liked to smoke his after-break 
 fast pipe on the veranda and contemplate 
 this pretty picture. 
 
 In the two years which had slipped away 
 since his marriage a good deal more than he 
 ever had dared even to hope for had come 
 to pass. Thanks to his own pluck and hard 
 work, which had won for him Uncle Man- 
 gan s substantial backing, he now was as suc 
 cessful an artist as there was to be found in 
 all New York. At times, in contemplation 
 of his good fortune, he was rather more than 
 half inclined to think that he must be some 
 body else ; an excess of mysticism that Rose 
 resolutely refused to countenance for in 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. II 7 
 
 such a case to whom was she married ? she 
 pertinently asked. As for Mr. Mangan 
 Brown, from being rather a grumpy sort of 
 an old fellow, he had come to be positively 
 beaming a sort of overgrown fairy god 
 father, as it were, to the whole household. 
 Not even the most remote allusion did he 
 now make to the commercial rather than 
 natural genesis of Miss Caledonia s back 
 hair : and by this sign Miss Caledonia knew 
 that he had experienced a change of heart. 
 Moreover, he was instant in good works to 
 each of the several members of the family ; 
 indeed, the extraordinary gifts which he 
 constantly brought home to little Madder 
 (named for his grandfather, of course) kept 
 Rose constantly in a condition between 
 laughter and tears. 
 
 " What can Madder possibly do with a 
 grindstone, Uncle Mangan ? " 
 
 "Possibly nothing at present, my dear. 
 But I remember when I was a boy and lived 
 in the country, I wanted a grindstone more 
 than anything else in the world especially 
 
Il8 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 after old Mitre Rabbit, the wheelwright, you 
 know, said that I couldn t use his ; and I am 
 sure that Madder will be glad enough, when 
 he is a little older, to have one of his own. 
 It can go in the cellar until he wants it, and 
 in the mean time it will be useful to sharpen 
 the carving knife." 
 
 Rose shuddered as her imagination con 
 jured up a ghastly picture of Madder more 
 or less cut to pieces with the knives which 
 the grindstone had made cruelly sharp ; and 
 she registered a mental vow that only over 
 her dead body should her offspring ever 
 come into possession of this shocking gift. 
 
 Now two of the most constant of the rather 
 numerous visitors to this exceptionally happy 
 household were young Orpiment and Mr. 
 Gamboge. All the way along for the past 
 twenty years or so, Mr. Gamboge had been 
 in the habit of spending one or two evenings 
 in each and every week in company with 
 Mr. Mangan Brown his friend and also his 
 associate in trade. Mr. Gamboge and Mr. 
 Mangan Brown had known each other ever 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. IIQ 
 
 since they were boys ; and M. Brown & Co., 
 and Orpiment & Gamboge owned in partner 
 ship a tannery in Lycoming County, Penn 
 sylvania, and in various other directions the 
 interests of the two firms were identical. 
 Ostensibly, the visits of Mr. Gamboge were 
 for the purpose of quietly and comfortably 
 talking over the affairs of the tannery ; but 
 it was an open secret in part revealed by 
 the exceptionally careful brushing bestowed 
 upon his fuzzy, close-cropped, grayish hair, 
 by the exceeding smoothness of his smooth- 
 shaven, fresh-colored face, by the admirable 
 precision of the cut and fit of his neat black 
 clothes that their real object was Miss Cale 
 donia. And there was a pleasant twinkle in 
 his kindly gray eyes when they happened to 
 meet as they very often did Miss Caledo 
 nia s kindly brown ones, that made this open 
 secret more open still. 
 
 In point of fact, for nearly the full term of 
 the twenty years during which Mr. Gamboge 
 had been making his weekly visits, he had 
 held toward Miss Caledonia the somewhat 
 
I2O COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 trying position of an earnest but undeclared 
 lover. His earnestness could not for a mo 
 ment be doubted ; but although Miss Cale 
 donia in a strictly proper and maidenly 
 manner, be it understood had contrived 
 that he should have at least one opportunity 
 in each week during the past twenty years 
 for making to her a formal tender of the 
 heart that she well knew without such tender 
 was hers, it was a melancholy fact that each 
 of these ten hundred and forty opportunities 
 successively had been wasted. 
 
 " Did he say anything to-night, Cale 
 donia ? " 
 
 "No, brother, not to-night. I think I 
 think that next week " 
 
 " Um. Possibly. Good-night, Caledo 
 nia." 
 
 " Good-night, brother." 
 
 This conversation between Mr. Mangan 
 Brown and Miss Caledonia had come to be 
 stereotyped. Before Mr. Mangan experi 
 enced his change of heart this was the occa 
 sion that he usually took for referring to the 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. 121 
 
 commercial characteristics of her back hair 
 in terms as pointed as they were unkind. 
 And not seldom would he go even further, 
 and advise that Miss Caledonia should in 
 vestigate into the requirements precedent to 
 admission into Saint Luke s Home for Aged 
 Couples, on Hudson Street assuring her 
 that if ever she and Mr. Gamboge got so far 
 along as to want a home for couples of any 
 sort, this certainly would be the only home 
 at all suited to their needs. Many and 
 many a night, her night-cap being drawn 
 well down over the thinly-thatched region 
 that was. covered luxuriantly by the hair of 
 commerce by day, did Miss Caledonia fall 
 asleep with tears in her gentle brown eyes 
 and heaviness in her heart. But, being a 
 round little woman of sanguine temperament, 
 she managed on the whole to keep up her 
 courage pretty well. Each week, when Mr. 
 Gamboge meaningly pressed her plump little 
 hand as he bade her good-night, yet left still 
 unsaid what he had come expressly to say, 
 she believed that the next week would see 
 
122 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 his moral strength established firmly at last ; 
 that then the words would be spoken which 
 he so earnestly longed to utter, and which 
 she so earnestly longed to hear. And so 
 believing, Miss Caledonia lived on always 
 in hope. 
 
 Now the trouble with Mr. Gamboge that 
 made him keep silence in this provoking 
 fashion was a constitutional indecision that 
 he could in nowise overcome. Never did 
 there live a man with less of positiveness in 
 his nature than Mr. Gamboge had in his. 
 This was the reason why he and Mr. Orpi- 
 ment always had got along so well together. 
 Mr. Orpiment, on the shortest notice, could 
 be positive enough about anything for six 
 ordinary people, and upon this superabun 
 dance of resolution Mr. Gamboge was accus 
 tomed to draw in order to make good his 
 own lack. Indeed, he could not have 
 adopted any other line of conduct without 
 getting into difficulties, for Mr. Orpiment, as 
 is the way with positive people the world 
 over, could not tolerate even the most re- 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. 123 
 
 mote approach to positiveness on the part 
 of anybody else. He might admit, perhaps, 
 though certainly disdainfully, that in the 
 abstract two or more opinions might be 
 entertained upon a given subject ; but the 
 moment that the matter became concrete, 
 his view narrowed into the unalterable con 
 viction that there was just one single tenable 
 opinion concerning it and that was his. 
 And, if peace was to be preserved, that 
 opinion had to be adopted in a hurry. Mr. 
 Gamboge, whose love of peace was so great 
 that it was the only thing in the world that 
 he would have fought for, always adopted 
 his partner s opinions with a becoming alac 
 rity. Nor did he, while Mr. Orpiment s 
 convictions were in course of formation, vent 
 ure to have any of his own. If appealed to 
 under such conditions, his answer invariably 
 was: I am waiting to confer with Mr. 
 Orpiment." And upon the rare occasions 
 when, in some matter foreign to the affairs 
 of the firm, he ventured so far as to express 
 views distinctively his own, it had come to 
 
124 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 be his habit to preface his remarks with 
 some such phrase as " Under these condi 
 tions, I think that Mr. Orpiment would say/ 
 or, " In a case of this sort, I think that Mr. 
 Orpiment would do." The fact was ob 
 served, however, by people who knew both 
 the members of the firm well, that what Mr. 
 Gamboge thus said or did under the sup 
 posititious shelter of Mr. Orpiment s mantle, 
 usually had a deal more of quiet good sense 
 about it than probably would have been 
 manifested had the matter really been set 
 tled by Mr. Orpiment himself. 
 
 For some time after that morning when 
 Mr. Orpiment stayed at home and died in his 
 bed instead of coming down-town in the 
 Bleecker Street car, the habit of referring to 
 his late partner s opinions increased upon Mr. 
 Gamboge greatly. Not a hide, not even a 
 kip, did he buy or sell without having some 
 thing to say to the seller or buyer as to what 
 Mr. Orpiment would have thought about the 
 terms upon which the transaction was con 
 cluded. But again it was observed by cer- 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. 12$ 
 
 tain long-headed leather-men down in the 
 Swamp, that since the decease of the senior 
 partner the firm of Orpiment & Gamboge 
 was doing a much larger and also a much 
 safer business than ever it had done while 
 the very positive Mr. Orpiment was alive. 
 
 However, the habit of a life-time cannot 
 be given over in a day. It is true that Mr. 
 Gamboge, now that Mr. Orpiment was 
 buried and done for, was beginning gradu 
 ally to have a few opinions and a trifling 
 amount of positiveness of his own ; but as 
 yet it was all too soon to expect him to pos 
 sess, still less to act upon, a positive opinion 
 touching this momentous matter of his own 
 heart and Miss Caledonia s hand. 
 
 As to the other visitor at the Brown s, 
 young Orpiment, matters were entirely dif 
 ferent. With an energetic promptness that 
 was strictly in keeping with the traditions of 
 his family, he had declared his love for 
 Verona under the most unfavorable circum 
 stances and in the most unmistakable terms. 
 With a disregard of prudence and reason 
 
126 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 that was positively heroic, he had made this 
 avowal on the very day that his uncle had 
 bidden him begone to his paint-pots and 
 starve. Whether he thought that love, be 
 ing had in sufficient quantities, would make 
 starvation impossible, or that if he must 
 starve it would be pleasanter to do it in lov 
 ing company, I am not prepared to say ; 
 but it is a fact that in less than three hours 
 after he had, as he put it, disinherited his 
 uncle, he had asked Verona Brown to marry 
 him and Verona Brown, collapsing from 
 the pinnacle of dignity upon which usually 
 she was exalted, suffered her beautiful dark 
 hair to be shockingly tumbled upon young 
 Orpiment s shoulder, and, with infinite ten 
 derness and infinite love in her sweet, low 
 voice, told him very frankly that she would ! 
 There was a suggestion, at least, of poetic 
 justice in this reckless entanglement of 
 Verona s affections by young Orpiment ; for 
 it was Vandyke Brown who had been very 
 largely the cause of the entanglement of 
 young Orpiment s affections by the goddess 
 
ORPIMENT &* GAMBOGE. I2/ 
 
 Art, to the utter ruin of his exceptionally 
 brilliant prospects in the leather business. 
 Young Orpiment had artistic talent, possibly 
 artistic genius, and Brown had the wit to 
 perceive it. Without thinking of the harm 
 that he might be doing, he urged young 
 Orpiment to abandon the leather that he 
 hated and to give himself to the art that he 
 loved ; and it was not until his advice was 
 taken, and he was called upon to behold the 
 pretty kettle of fish that had come of it, that 
 he perceived what a serious responsibility 
 the giving of advice involves. With his own 
 dreary experience still fresh in mind, he 
 realized far more clearly than young Orpi 
 ment did, or could, how nearly hopeless is 
 the struggle for artistic success when the 
 artist has to earn his daily bread as he goes 
 along. But he kept these cheerful reflec 
 tions to himself that is to say, to himself 
 and Rose. They were quite agreed that 
 young Orpiment and Verona had a suffi 
 ciency of troubles in hand without being 
 called upon to take any upon interest. 
 
128 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 To be sure, there was a ray of hope for a 
 moment when Mr. Orpiment died, for young 
 Orpiment was his legal and only heir. But 
 this hope was promptly extinguished, or 
 pretty nearly so, by Mr. Orpiment s extraor 
 dinary double-barrelled will with that omi 
 nous legacy in the first barrel to the Protes 
 tant half-orphans. 
 
 " It will be just like the old wretch to 
 have left those miserable half-orphans every 
 cent of his money, Van," said Rose with 
 energetic determination. " And a nice 
 thing that will be, to be sure ; turning all 
 their heads by making so many millionaires 
 of them ! " 
 
 "The ome alf-orphan," observed Jaune 
 d Antimoine, who happened to be present 
 when Rose thus freed her mind. " Ah, e is 
 the estabelisment most curious in Tens 
 Street. I ave much vondered at im. Tell 
 me, my Van, what is this ome alf-orphan ? " 
 
 " It s a place where they take care of chil 
 dren born with only one leg and one arm. 
 Of course, children like that have to be taken 
 
ORPIMENT <5r> GAMBOGE. 
 
 care of by somebody. It s a capital charity. 
 We ll go down there some day and see em. 
 They re a jolly queer lot ; all go about hop 
 ping, you know." 
 
 " Nonsense, Van. Don t believe him, M. 
 d Antimoine. They are called half-orphans 
 because they have only one father or one 
 mother. I m a half-orphan myself." 
 
 " Eh ? But, truly, Madame Brown, it is 
 not most common for the child to ave more 
 than one father or one mother not, that is, 
 is it thought well that e should ave more. 
 Ah, pardon! I forget that Madame says 
 that she is erself alf-orphan. No doubt to 
 be so is most well in this country. In 
 America is not as in France." 
 
 M. d Antimoine no more comprehended 
 why Brown went off into such fits of laughter, 
 nor why Rose blushed a little and laughed 
 too, than he did the laborious explanation 
 of the constituent elements of a half-orphan 
 that Brown, under the circumstances, felt 
 called upon to make to him. 
 
 But whether Mr. Orpiment s money was 
 9 
 
130 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 or was not destined for the use of this excel 
 lent charity, there was no ground for hoping 
 that any part of it was destined for his 
 nephew ; the spiteful clause in the will for 
 bidding Mr. Gamboge to give employment 
 to young Orpiment cut hope in this direction 
 short off. Obviously, this clause was put in 
 to serve as a check upon any indiscretion 
 that Mr. Gamboge might be led into by 
 what Mr. Orpiment always had styled his 
 absurdly soft heart ; and it was a patent 
 declaration of a tolerably positive sort that 
 young Orpiment was disinherited. His sole 
 fortune, under these circumstances, was a 
 little property that had come down to him 
 from his father, and that yielded him the 
 magnificent income of four hundred and 
 seventy-one dollars a year. However, this 
 was enough to keep a roof over his head, 
 and to feed him and to give him at very 
 long intervals something in the way of new 
 clothes. Mr. Gamboge, by artfully repre 
 senting the solitariness of his own home, did 
 his best to make young Orpiment come and 
 
ORPIMENT &> GAMBOGE. 131 
 
 share it with him ; but his uncommonly tall 
 stories about his melancholy loneliness 
 stories, let us hope, which were promptly 
 blotted out in the celestial account against 
 him by the friendly tears of the recording 
 angel did not deceive his auditor. Grate 
 fully, but decidedly, the tender thus made 
 of exceedingly comfortable free quarters was 
 declined. But the invitations to dinner that 
 Mr. Gamboge and the Browns showered 
 upon him could not be refused at least not 
 without giving pain ; and so, while his rai 
 ment was anything but purple and fine linen, 
 young Orpiment at least fared sumptuous 
 ly pretty nearly every day. And he was 
 cheered and comforted, as only the love of a 
 good woman can cheer and comfort a man, 
 by the love of Verona Brown. 
 
 Verona certainly manifested a most con 
 spicuous lack of worldly wisdom in thus 
 lavishing her affections upon a man whose 
 fortunes were so near to being desperate. 
 But then excepting in the case of Mr. 
 Mangan worldly wisdom was not a promi- 
 
I3 2 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 nent characteristic of the Brown family ; and 
 even Mr. Mangan had less of it now than he 
 had before he experienced his change of 
 heart. Only a couple of years earlier in his 
 life, acting in the capacity of Verona s guar 
 dian, he would have shown young Orpi- 
 ment to the door with amazing promptitude 
 and energy, had he ventured to present him 
 self, under such circumstances as at present 
 existed, in the guise of Verona s suitor. 
 And, in truth, he had no great liking for 
 what was going on now ; but now, at least, 
 he took a larger, a more liberal view of life 
 than had been his habit in the past for the 
 lesson that he had learned from his relations 
 with Van had made him more tolerant. 
 Therefore it was that, instead of heaping 
 maledictions upon young Orpiment s head, 
 he ordered a landscape from him. In due 
 time this order was filled, and the picture 
 was sent home. There was ever so much 
 of it, and its light and shade were ever so 
 queer, and there was something dreadfully 
 wrong in its perspective ; but, for all its 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. 133 
 
 eccentricities, there were in it hints of genu 
 ine good quality. It was a harrowing thing 
 of look at, of course ; but its badness was 
 the badness of a crudity in which there was 
 hope. 
 
 So they had young Orpiment to dinner, 
 and after dinner the picture was hung 
 solemnly over the mantel-piece in the front 
 parlor. This was an honorable position for 
 it to occupy, and it was a position that pos- 
 jessed certain practical advantages ; for 
 when the gas was lighted, unless you climbed 
 over one of the diagonally placed sofas and 
 got quite into one of the corners of the room, 
 the picture had such a glitter upon it that it 
 simply was invisible. Old Madder, who 
 also was dining with them that night, began 
 to comment upon this fact and only made 
 matters worse by asking Rose, in an ag 
 grieved tone, what he was saying that he 
 shouldn t say to make her pinch him so. 
 
 Of course this was not a genuine sale, 
 looking at the matter from an artist s stand 
 point ; and certain other sales to Mr. Gam- 
 
134 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 boge and to some of the friends of these two 
 purchasers were not genuine either ; but 
 they served their well-meant purpose of 
 keeping the fire going under the pot that 
 young Orpiment so gallantly was striving to 
 make boil. 
 
 Old Madder, by the way, much enjoyed 
 dining with the young people, and they and 
 Mr. Mangan and Miss Caledonia made him 
 very welcome. At these dinners he con 
 ducted himself upon the lines of a serious 
 dignity, and seriously talked art to Mr. 
 Mangan, whose knowledge of art was lim 
 ited to a commercial appreciation of the 
 value of gilt decorations on red leather boot- 
 tops designed for the Western trade ; or, 
 when he happened to be in a cantankerous 
 mood, made vicious thrusts at Van and the 
 young geniuses generally, under the guise 
 of lamentations over the degeneracy of 
 modern painters. His own work, of course, 
 continued to be as exasperating as ever. 
 He nearly drove Van wild by insisting upon 
 painting a portrait of little Madder, that was 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. 135 
 
 hung on the line at the Academy, and that 
 was described in the catalogue as " Grand 
 father s Darling." From the degenerate 
 modern painters with whom he associated, 
 Van did not hear the last of that horrible 
 caricature of his first-born for years. Among 
 the League men the picture was styled 
 The Slaughter of the Innocent" which 
 naturally enough led somebody to speak of 
 the artist as Herod, and so won for old 
 Madder the nickname of Herod Madder that 
 he bore, without knowing it, to the end of 
 his days. After this bitter experience, when 
 old Madder wanted to paint Rose and the 
 new baby, little Caledonia (to all intents and 
 purposes his " Soldier s Widow and Orphaned 
 Child" over again), and call it "The Young 
 Mother s First Love," Brown put his foot 
 down firmly and said that it should not be 
 done. And not until several months had 
 passed in the course of which old Madder 
 gradually had convinced himself that Brown 
 was jealous of his superior work, and that, 
 under these circumstances, he could afford to 
 
136 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 be magnanimous did old Madder and 
 Brown get along well together again. 
 
 By the time that this second baby was 
 born, Brown had conquered so firm a stand 
 ing-place, and was so crowded with work 
 that his acceptance of an order had come to 
 be considered something of a favor. Young 
 Orpiment, being present one day when an 
 order actually was rejected, and knowing 
 that Brown had fought and won just such a 
 battle as he was fighting, felt himself stirred 
 with hope. 
 
 And, in truth, as the season of his appren 
 ticeship wore away, there came to be a good 
 deal for young Orpiment to feel hopeful 
 about. Working steadily and earnestly, the 
 weeks and the months slipped by until he 
 found behind him, since the day when he 
 forswore Leather as a master and took for 
 his mistress Art, three whole years ; and 
 three years of honest hard work, if a man 
 has got anything in him to begin with, is 
 bound to tell. His little pictures after 
 those first orders he had the sense not to 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. 137 
 
 paint big ones had a fair sale now on their 
 merits. They did not sell for much, it is 
 true, and they still were a long way off from 
 being really good work ; but at least the 
 good quality that was in them no longer was 
 obscured by bad perspective and by doubt 
 ful light and shade. They had a clear, fresh 
 tone, moreover, that was distinctively their 
 own. Being sent to the exhibitions, they 
 no longer were rejected ; and some of the 
 more recent ones had taken a most encour 
 aging step downward from the sky toward 
 the line. The newspapers began to men 
 tion his work respectfully, and The Skeptic, 
 with an amiable exercise of its powers of 
 prophecy based upon its faculty for recog 
 nizing genius in embryo, even went so far as 
 to say that in him another landscape painter 
 had been born. 
 
 All this was tremendously encouraging, of 
 course, and young Orpiment was heartened 
 and comforted by it greatly ; but even with 
 such good fortune attending him, he could 
 not but find weariness in his long time of 
 
138 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 waiting for an income from his work that 
 would enable him to make Verona his wife. 
 Both Mr. Mangan Brown and Mr. Gamboge 
 had offered repeatedly to discount for him 
 the future that now pretty certainly was his ; 
 but this good offer, with Verona s entire ap 
 proval, he decidedly refused. If Verona 
 would wait for him while he worked, he said 
 and the light of a strong resolution shone 
 in his blue eyes he would work on until his 
 success was won. And Verona, with the 
 gentle dignity that was natural to her, drew 
 up her tall, graceful figure to its full height, 
 and answered simply that she would wait 
 would wait, she said, and without the least 
 intention of irony, for forty years. 
 
 For these expectant lovers, the example 
 set them by Miss Caledonia and Mr. Gam 
 boge was most encouraging. What was 
 their three years of probation in comparison 
 with the three-and-twenty years of probation 
 that their elders had endured? And the 
 encouragement thus given was all the 
 greater because, as time went on, the matri- 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. 139 
 
 monial prospects of Mr. Gamboge and Miss 
 Caledonia apparently stood still. In the 
 past three years Miss Caledonia had con 
 trived near eight-score fresh opportunities 
 for the long-delayed proposal ; and on each 
 of these several occasions Mr. Gamboge had 
 hesitated until his opportunity was lost. On 
 the whole, however, Miss Caledonia s san 
 guine nature found cause for encouragement 
 in the perceptible change that had come over 
 Mr. Gamboge as these three years sped by. 
 No less than twice, to her certain knowledge, 
 had he expressed positively a positive opin 
 ion of his own. On a memorable Saturday 
 he had said, in a firm voice, before the whole 
 family assembled at the dinner-table, that 
 rare roast beef was much improved by horse 
 radish. On a memorable Thursday evening 
 he had said, addressing Mr. Mangan Brown, 
 and in a tone of bold effrontery that thrilled 
 her soul with joy, that " this idiotic tinkering 
 at the tariff on foreign leather was simply 
 unpardonable." On neither of these occa 
 sions did Mr. Gamboge refer even remotely 
 
COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 to Mr. Orpiment : not a word about Mr. 
 Orpiment s preferences in the matter of 
 applying horse-radish to roast beef; not a 
 word about Mr. Orpiment s opinions in re 
 gard to the customs duties on foreign hides. 
 Here was living proof that Mr. Gamboge 
 was getting to have a mind of his own ; and 
 here, consequently, was substantial ground 
 upon which Miss Caledonia could found her 
 conviction that a happy ending to her long 
 courting was near at hand. 
 
 Nor was this all. To the best of Miss 
 Caledonia s belief, Mr. Gamboge actually 
 once had got so far as to make a real start 
 toward speaking the momentous words which 
 would resolve into a glad certainty their 
 three-and-twenty years of doubt. It was 
 upon a pleasant Sunday afternoon in the late 
 spring-time that Mr. Gamboge got started 
 in the mellow weather when the buds of May 
 were bursting into the blossoms of June, and 
 all nature was glad with the bright promise 
 of the coming summer s generous life. They 
 two were seated alone upon the veranda, 
 
ORPIMENT &> GAMBOGE. 141 
 
 screened from the too-curious gaze of pass 
 ers-by by festoons of the climbing plants 
 which had shot up blithely since the warm 
 days began ; and Mr. Gamboge, in a state 
 of post-prandial contentment, was smoking 
 an especially satisfactory cigar. After the 
 fashion of a dove-like serpent, Miss Cale 
 donia by degrees had shifted the ground of 
 their talk until it had come to be of the 
 dreary life that Mr. Gamboge was leading in 
 his great house wherein he dwelt alone. 
 There was a tender solicitude in Miss Cale 
 donia s tone that sunk deep into the heart of 
 Mr. Gamboge and wrought great havoc 
 there. Her low, gentle voice sounded 
 sweetly in his ears ; her suggestions for his 
 comfort were practical without being revolu 
 tionary ; he felt but more keenly than ever 
 before in all the twenty-three years that in 
 Miss Caledonia he would find a helpmate 
 indeed. His excellent dinner prepared, as 
 he well knew, under Miss Caledonia s super 
 vision his excellent cigar, the soft spring 
 weather, Miss Caledonia s pleasingly plump 
 
142 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 person and sympathetic words : all these 
 agreeable forces, acting upon his newly ac 
 quired disposition to have a mind of his own 
 and speak it, conspired to make him utter 
 the decisive words. A nervous thrill went 
 over him, and he straightened himself in his 
 chair. Miss Caledonia saw what was com 
 ing, and was struck with awe. She ceased 
 speaking ; her hands fluttered with her hand 
 kerchief; there was a trembling of her lips. 
 
 " In regard to our personal relations, Miss 
 Caledonia, I am sure that Mr. Orpiment 
 would have said that is, I know that under 
 these conditions Mr. Orpiment would have 
 done in fact, I am confident that Mr. Orpi 
 ment would have approved " 
 
 " Oh, confound old Orpiment," said that 
 wretched Vandyke Brown, stepping out 
 upon the veranda through the open window 
 in time to hear this last mention of Mr. Orpi- 
 ment s name. " Of course you know, Mr. 
 Gamboge," he went on, " I don t want to 
 hurt your feelings, or anything " for he saw 
 that Mr. Gamboge was very much upset 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. 143 
 
 " But when I think what a lot of good that 
 old screw might have done by leaving his 
 money to his nephew, and so giving him a 
 fair start in the world, I really can t help 
 hating the very sound of his name. 
 
 " Aunt Caledonia ? Rose wants to know if 
 you can tell what on earth has gone with 
 Madder s light cloak. You had him out yes 
 terday, you know, and Rose can t find it 
 anywhere." 
 
 "You will find it where it belongs," an 
 swered Miss Caledonia frigidly, " on the 
 third shelf of the closet in the back room." 
 
 And so good fortune had come sailing 
 down over the sea of hope to Miss Caledonia 
 even had stopped to signal her and then 
 had sailed away ! After that rude interrup 
 tion the perturbed spirit of Mr. Gamboge 
 although Miss Caledonia did her best to 
 bring it could not be brought back to the 
 tender mood that so fairly had promised a 
 fair solution of the long-vexed problem of 
 their lives. Still, having come thus close to 
 happiness, Miss Caledonia felt more than 
 
144 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 ever certain that happiness yet would be 
 hers. 
 
 So the months went rolling on and on, 
 and the time drew near when Mr. Orpiment s 
 five years lease upon posterity would end. 
 Under the judicious management of Mr. 
 Gamboge, his late partner s estate had in 
 creased prodigiously, and the prospects of 
 the Protestant half-orphans were amazingly 
 fine. 
 
 "I don t doubt that the miserable little 
 creatures will get fifty thousand dollars 
 apiece and I hope that it will choke them ! " 
 said Rose in a fine burst of indignation and 
 in a fine mixture of metaphors. Nothing 
 that Van could say could convince Rose that 
 Mr. Orpiment s property would not be di 
 vided up among the individual half-orphans 
 in the asylum at the time when the bequest 
 became operative. 
 
 As to young Orpiment, he really did not 
 care very much now whether the half-orphans 
 got his uncle s money or not. He was fairly 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. 145 
 
 on his legs by this time, with a steady income 
 of two thousand dollars or so a year, and he 
 and Verona were to be married very soon. 
 Of course, they would have to live in a very 
 quiet way, and some of the things which 
 they most wanted to do the trip to the 
 glorious mountain region of Northern New 
 Mexico, for instance would have to wait 
 awhile. But the great point was that at last 
 he was earning enough by his own work to 
 permit him, without utterly defying Mr. 
 Mangan Brown and worldly wisdom, to 
 make Verona his wife. 
 
 For young Orpiment had fought bravely 
 and had won gallantly his battle for the 
 standard of Art. And wasn t Verona proud 
 of him, though ! For Verona knew that his 
 fight for success as an artist was only the 
 visible form of his fight for success as a 
 lover ; and all the wealth of her strong love, 
 all her honoring esteem, went, out to this 
 her hero, who, for her love s sake, had con 
 quered the world ! 
 
 With the solemnity befitting so decisive 
 
 10 
 
146 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 an occasion, Mr. Gamboge wrote a formal 
 invitation to young Orpiment to be present, 
 on the fifth anniversary of the day after the 
 day of Mr. Orpiment s death, at the going 
 off of the second barrel of Mr. Orpiment s 
 will. But, in order to mitigate the formality 
 a little, and to make somewhat less solemn 
 the solemnity, Mr. Gamboge himself handed 
 the written invitation to young Orpiment, 
 and added to it a verbal invitation to come 
 and dine with him as a preliminary to the 
 reading. Under the circumstances, the fact 
 was obvious that Verona had a constructive 
 right to be present when the will was read ; 
 and as Verona could not with propriety be 
 present alone, the necessity presented itself 
 of asking Miss Caledonia to come with her. 
 Naturally, this suggested the advisability of 
 asking Mr. Mangan Brown too. And hav 
 ing got this far, Mr. Gamboge concluded 
 that he might just as well go a little farther 
 and ask Van and Rose and old Madder ; and 
 so he did. 
 
 It was only a lucky accident, however, 
 
ORPIMEXT &> GAMBOGE. 147 
 
 that saved the party from being entirely 
 broken up by a rash act of little Caledonia s. 
 Van wanted Rose s hands for something that 
 he was painting, and she had gone up to the 
 studio the day before the will dinner-party 
 as she styled the feast that Mr. Gamboge 
 was to give taking the baby along with her. 
 There was not much of this baby, and she 
 was not quite two years old, but she had a 
 faculty for getting into pickles far beyond 
 her size and years. However, there did not 
 seem to be much chance for her to get into 
 trouble on the studio floor. 
 
 The fact must be confessed that, although 
 they had been married for five years, Rose 
 and Van had a shocking habit of philander 
 ing ; and so it fell out, when he had put in 
 her hands to his satisfaction, that he had 
 laid down his palette and brushes on the foot 
 of his easel, and somehow they had drifted 
 into the big chair, and had got to talking 
 about that autumn morning when"Lydia 
 Darragh " perished, and the great happiness 
 of their lives began. 
 
14 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 " It was dreadful, Van, the way that I told 
 you, right out before all those men, that I 
 loved you ! I never can think of it without 
 blushing." (Rose was blushing most charm 
 ingly, and that was a fact.) " But I really 
 never thought of them at all, and that s the 
 solemn truth. All that I thought of was 
 your ruined work, and of what you were 
 working for it was me that you were work 
 ing for, you know, and I knew all about it ! 
 and of trying to comfort you. Did it 
 comfort you, dear ? Are you sure, Van, that 
 you are glad that you married me ? Have I 
 really made you happy? You are so good 
 to me 
 
 Caledonia! Caledonia! STOP! Merci 
 ful heaven, Van, she s got your palette and 
 is eating the paints ! Our child is poisoned ! 
 She will die ! " And Rose shot up, much as 
 she would have done had Van been a cata 
 pult and suddenly gone off, and caught the 
 chromnivorous infant in her arms. 
 
 Van was pretty badly scared too, but he 
 had his wits about him, and looked at the 
 
ORPJMEWT & GAMBOGE. 149 
 
 palette before giving his assent to Rose s 
 alarmed proposition that death by poison 
 must be the inevitable result of Caledonia s 
 unnatural repast. 
 
 "Steady, Rose. I guess it s all right. 
 She s begun at the black end of the palette, 
 luckily, and she s eaten only as far as asphal- 
 tum. No doubt she ll have a lively time in 
 her little inside, but she hasn t had a scrap 
 of the light colors, and there s nothing in 
 the dark ones to damage her much. But 
 we d better rush her off to the doctor, all the 
 same." 
 
 And Van was right. Caledonia did not 
 perish, but she had a tremendously large 
 stomach-ache for so small a stomach, and she 
 kept her bed for the remainder of the day. 
 Mr. Mangan Brown, in a well-meant en 
 deavor to mitigate the severity of her suf 
 ferings, the very next morning bought her a 
 concertina, and a pair of skates, and a richly 
 illustrated octavo Life of Washington. That 
 these appropriate gifts inured to her better 
 ment is problematical, but she certainly was 
 
COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 so completely recovered by the ensuing 
 evening that her illness was no barrier to the 
 success of the will dinner-party given by 
 Mr. Gamboge. 
 
 The dinner in every way was admirable 
 although Miss Caledonia secretly noticed 
 certain shortcomings in the service, which 
 she promptly resolved should be corrected 
 when she was called upon to take command. 
 But for all the excellence of the dinner, the 
 assembled company was disposed to slight 
 it to hurry through with it in order to get 
 at the reading of the will. Even the fact 
 that young Orpiment on that very day had 
 sold his big picture, " Spring on the Hud 
 son Highlands," for $450 the highest price 
 that anything of his so far had brought 
 scarcely made a ripple upon the strong, 
 stream of curiosity that was sweeping for 
 ward toward the moment when positive 
 knowledge would determine what part the 
 Protestant half-orphans were to play in the 
 final disposition of Mr. Orpiment s estate. 
 
 " If it wasn t for Verona, he might pick 
 
ORPIAJENT & GAMBOGE. I$I 
 
 out the nicest looking of the girl half- 
 orphans for a wife, and get part of it back 
 that way," said Rose under her breath to 
 Van, as they passed from the dining-room to 
 the library, where Mr. Gamboge was to read 
 the will. " But as things are, though," she 
 added with a touch of melancholy in her 
 tone, " that is quite out of the question." 
 
 " Yes," said Van, " it is. And you are a 
 goose." And he stopped her in the shadow 
 to leeward of the eight-day clock and kissed 
 her. 
 
 " Of course you all know," said Mr. Gam 
 boge in a slightly oratorical tone, holding the 
 sealed will in his hand, " that I have no 
 knowledge whatever of the contents of this 
 document. Should its contents be what I 
 fear they are, you all know that I shall feel, 
 as you all will feel, that a great injustice has 
 been done to our young and gifted friend ; 
 to our friend, who by his noble force of 
 character, not less than by his great genius " 
 
 "Don t," said young Orpiment, appeal- 
 ingly. 
 
152 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 " Well, I won t," said Mr. Gamboge, drop 
 ping suddenly from his oratorical heights. 
 " But I will say this : if the estate don t come 
 to you, my dear boy, I shall think less of 
 Mr. Orpiment s judgment then I ever did 
 and I never did think much of it, anyway." 
 
 At these spirited words Miss Caledonia s 
 heart gave a bound for she perceived that 
 now, beyond a doubt or a peradventure, Mr. 
 Gamboge had come into the kingdom of his 
 personal independence at last : and she was 
 his waiting queen ! As for Mr. Mangan 
 Brown, his lower jaw dropped as though the 
 muscles had parted ; and Van gave utterance 
 to a prolonged whistle that Rose had the 
 presence of mind to conceal by coughing 
 violently. 
 
 Oblivious to the sensation caused by his 
 revolutionary declaration, Mr. Gamboge ad 
 justed his spectacles, broke the three black 
 seals, and began the reading of the will. It 
 set out with the affirmation that Mr. Orpi- 
 ment feared God and was in his right mind 
 statements which caused Miss Caledonia 
 
OR PI ME NT & GAMBOGE. 153 
 
 to purse her lips together doubtingly and 
 went on with a list of the testator s posses 
 sions : the house in which he had lived, and 
 some other houses ; his share in the tannery 
 in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania ; some 
 warehouses down-town ; some building lots 
 on Seventy-ninth Street ; various stocks and 
 bonds ; and his interest in the leather busi 
 ness carried on by the firm of Orpiment & 
 Gamboge. 
 
 " I wonder how the half-orphans will settle 
 about the houses and building lots ? " Rose 
 whispered inquiringly as Mr. Gamboge 
 paused at the end of the list. 
 
 "Draw lots for em, probably," Van whis 
 pered in reply. 
 
 Mr. Gamboge read on : "Whereas, by my 
 will to which this codicil is supplement, I 
 gave all my residuary estate to my executors 
 upon certain trusts, now I appoint the fur 
 ther trusts referred to in said will as con 
 tained in this codicil." 
 
 At last Mr. Orpiment s intentions were to 
 be made plain. Everybody bent forward, 
 
154 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 listening eagerly, and Mr. Gamboge could 
 not keep his voice from trembling : " At the 
 end of the said period of five years from the 
 time of my decease I direct my executors to 
 assign, convey, and pay over the whole of 
 my residuary estate with its increase and ac 
 cumulations to the person who, when the 
 same is payable, shall act as treasurer to the 
 Society for the Relief of Half-Orphan and 
 Destitute Children in the City of New York, 
 to be applied to the charitable uses and pur 
 poses of said society under its direction." 
 Mr. Gamboge gave an audible groan, laid 
 the will down on his knee, took off his spec 
 tacles, which suddenly had grown misty, 
 and with his silk handkerchief wiped them 
 dry. 
 
 "The unfeeling, unnatural, heartless old 
 wretch ! " cried Rose. 
 
 " Never mind, dear; you have conquered 
 fortune for yourself, and I love you a thou 
 sand times more for it," said Verona in a low 
 voice, as she took young Orpiment s hand 
 in both of hers. 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. 155 
 
 " It is shameful ! " said Miss Caledonia. 
 
 " It is just what I expected," said Mr. 
 Mangan Brown; "but I m uncommonly 
 sorry for you, all the same, Orpiment." 
 
 " It s all my fault, for leading you off into 
 painting ; I hope devoutly that you may live 
 long enough to forgive me, old fellow," said 
 Van, ruefully. 
 
 " Nonsense, Van. You ve been the mak 
 ing of me, and I never can be sufficiently 
 thankful to you," young Orpiment answered 
 in a cheery tone that had a thoroughly genu 
 ine ring to it. 
 
 " Art alone is worth living for, Mr. Orpi 
 ment," said old Madder. " Because you 
 have escaped the thralldom of riches, I con 
 gratulate you with all my heart ! " 
 
 11 There s another page of the thing," said 
 Mr. Gamboge dismally, and making as he 
 spoke a suspicious dab at his eyes with his 
 big handkerchief. " We may as well get 
 done with it," and he turned the page and 
 read on : 
 
 " Provided, that at the end of said period 
 
156 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 of five years from the time of my decease 
 my nephew shall not have proved, by earning 
 from the sale of his pictures an income of 
 not less than $2,000 yearly; that in abandon 
 ing the leather business and in adopting the 
 business of picture-painting, he was right in 
 the choice of his vocation and I was wrong. 
 Should this very improbable contingency 
 arise, then at the time aforesaid I direct my 
 executors to assign, convey, and pay over to 
 him, my said nephew, the whole of my re 
 siduary estate with its increase and accumu 
 lations, to him, his heirs, executors, adminis 
 trators, and assigns forever." 
 
 " God bless you, my dear boy !" fairly 
 shouted Mr. Gamboge, dashing down the 
 will and his spectacles and his handkerchief 
 upon the floor, and rushing over to young 
 Orpiment and hugging him. " God bless 
 you, my dear boy, the estate really is yours 
 after all ! " 
 
 And everybody everybody, that is, but 
 Verona and old Madder in the delight and 
 excitement of the moment, followed Mr. 
 
ORPIMENT & GAMBOGE. 157 
 
 Gamboge s exhilarating example. Even the 
 staid Mr. Mangan Brown, even the decorous 
 Miss Caledonia, hugged young Orpiment as 
 hard as ever they knew how. Verona just 
 sat still and looked at him, and through the 
 tears in her lovely brown eyes there shone 
 the light of a great joy and the tenderness of 
 a greater love. The thought that she also 
 was a gainer by this revolution in young 
 Orpiment s fortunes never once crossed her 
 mind; all that she thought of was that his 
 life of toil and struggle now was at an 
 end ; that for her hard-working hero the 
 chance to do good work restfully had come 
 at last. 
 
 (It was not until an hour or so later, when 
 they were walking home together, that an 
 other phase of the matter presented itself to 
 Rose she was a great hand for seeing things 
 in original lights. " Do you know, Van," 
 she said in a very melancholy voice, " I can t 
 help feeling dreadfully sorry for those poor 
 little Protestant half-orphans ? To think of 
 
158 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 their coming so near to being heirs and 
 heiresses, and then not getting a single bit 
 of their fortunes after all ! ") 
 
 Old Madder, waiting until the storm had 
 subsided a little, and standing, as it were, 
 afar off, did what he could to throw a wet 
 blanket over the general joy by saying 
 mournfully : 
 
 " I hope that this is for the best, Mr. 
 Orpiment ; but I fear that it is for the worst. 
 Art is a jealous mistress, and Wealth is her 
 sworn foe. You have my sincere pity, sir ; 
 for I sincerely believe that you are a ruined 
 man ! " 
 
 However, old Madder s wet blanket was 
 not a success, for his genial gloom no more 
 could stay the eruption of happiness that 
 had begun than a real wet blanket could 
 stay an eruption of Vesuvius. Indeed, no 
 body paid the least attention to what he was 
 saying, for just as he began his cheerful re 
 marks Mr. Gamboge, looking rather nervous, 
 but also looking very much resolved, rose to 
 
ORPIMENT <Sr GAMBOGE. 1 59 
 
 his feet with the air of a man who is about 
 to make a speech. Somehow there was that 
 in his manner that made all the blood in 
 Miss Caledonia s body rush tumultuously to 
 her heart. Her prophetic soul told her that 
 it was coming now in very truth ! 
 
 " My dear Brown," said Mr. Gamboge, 
 addressing Mr. Mangan, "there is a matter 
 very near to my heart, concerning which I 
 long have desired to speak with you. Pos 
 sibly you may have noticed that my atten 
 tions to your sister, Miss Caledonia, for some 
 time past have been rather marked ? " 
 
 "I have observed the phenomenon to 
 which you refer," answered Mr. Mangan, for 
 Mr. Gamboge had spoken interrogatively, 
 and had paused for a reply "I have ob 
 served the phenomenon to which you refer, 
 my dear Gamboge, pretty constantly for the 
 past twenty-five years." 
 
 " Precisely," said Mr. Gamboge, in a tone 
 indicating that he felt encouraged. "You 
 are right, my dear Brown, as you always 
 
160 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 are. My reckoning of the number of years 
 during which my attentions to Miss Caledo 
 nia have been, as I say, rather marked cor 
 responds with yours exactly. And it seems 
 to me, my dear Brown, that this period has 
 been of a sufficient extent to enable us that 
 is, to enable Miss Caledonia and me to ac 
 quire such ample knowledge of each other s 
 tastes, habits, and moral characteristics as 
 will justify us in deciding now whether or 
 not we prudently may advance to a yet 
 closer relationship." 
 
 " Looking at the matter dispassionately, 
 my dear Gamboge, I should say that it 
 had." 
 
 " My own sentiments, my dear Brown, I 
 may say, are, and for some years past have 
 been, unalterably established. I revere your 
 sister, Miss Caledonia, as the best and wisest 
 of women. Under the existing circum 
 stances, Mrs. Brown and Miss Verona will 
 pardon, I am sure, this expression of what, 
 under any other circumstances, might be 
 
ORPIMENT , & GA MB OGE. 1 6 1 
 
 considered, if not a too exalted, at least a too 
 exclusive, estimate of her virtues." 
 
 " Certainly," said Rose. 
 
 "Of course," said Verona. 
 
 " Entertaining these unalterable senti 
 ments, therefore, my dear Brown, the strong 
 est, the holiest wish of my life is to make her 
 my wife. To you, as her natural protector, 
 to her, as the arbiter of her own destiny, I 
 now appeal on this auspicious occasion 
 when my young friend Orpiment wears 
 proudly in our presence his tripartite crown 
 of riches, genius, and requited love. My 
 dear Brown, may I have her? Miss Cale 
 donia, will you be mine ? " 
 
 " May he have you, Caledonia ? " 
 
 " Oh, brother ! how can you ask ? It it 
 shall be just as you say." 
 
 "Then I say, and I say it heartily, my 
 dear Gamboge, take her and God bless you 
 both ! " and Mr. Mangan Brown led the 
 blushing Miss Caledonia to Mr. Gamboge 
 and placed her hand in his. 
 ii 
 
1 62 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 And so, young Orpiment having come 
 into his fortune, and Mr. Gamboge having 
 come into his kingdom, Mr. Orpiment s 
 lease upon posterity was cancelled, and he 
 really was dead at last. 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 
 
 IT was Rowney Mauve who described 
 Roberson as being like one of his own 
 still-lifes : a lot of queer stuff badly com 
 posed and out of drawing, and with his per 
 spective all wrong. And I regret to add 
 that it was Miss Carmine, when she heard 
 this description, and recognized its accu 
 racy, who giggled. To say that Violet 
 Carmine was a pickle, is presenting a state 
 ment of the case that is well within bounds. 
 The arrival of this somewhat erratic young 
 person in New York was unexpected, and 
 had a rather dramatic touch about it. On 
 a warm evening in September, while yet 
 the dying splendor of sunset hung redly 
 over the Jersey Highlands, Mr. Mangan 
 Brown was sitting in a wicker-chair on the 
 veranda of his own exceedingly comfort- 
 
1 64 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 able home in West Eleventh Street. He 
 was in the perfectly placid frame of mind 
 that is the right of a man who has dined 
 well, and who is smoking a good cigar. In 
 another wicker-chair, similarly placid, simi 
 larly smoking a good cigar, sat Vandyke 
 Brown. And between the two sat Rose : 
 whose nature was so sweet at all times, that 
 even after-dinner cigars (supposing that she 
 had been inclined to smoke them, and she 
 was not) could not have made it one particle 
 sweeter. These three people were very 
 fond of each other : and they were talking 
 away pleasantly about nothing in particular, 
 and were gently light-hearted, and were 
 having a deal of enjoyment in a quiet way, 
 as they sat there, beneath their own vine 
 and ailanthus tree, in the light of the mel 
 low after-glow left when the sun went down. 
 Their perfect peacefulness can be likened 
 only to that of a tropical calm : and, there 
 fore, the unities of the situation were pre 
 served, though its placidity was shattered, 
 when the calm was broken by what with a 
 
ROBERSOWS MEDIUM. 165 
 
 tolerable degree of accuracy may be describ 
 ed as a tropical storm. 
 
 Out of a coupe, that stopped with a 
 flourish in front of Mr. Mangan Brown s 
 gate, descended a tall young woman, with 
 a good deal of color in her cheeks and a 
 good deal of black hair and a pair of ex 
 ceptionally bright black eyes. She carried 
 a cage, in which was a large white cockatoo, 
 in one hand, and with the other she opened 
 the gate in a decisive sort of way, as though 
 she had a right to open it ; and in a positive, 
 proprietary fashion she traversed the walk 
 of flags to the veranda steps. Mr. Mangan 
 Brown arose from his wicker-chair some 
 what reluctantly, for he was very comfort 
 able and advanced to meet her. 
 
 "You must be my cousin Mangan. I 
 am very glad to see you, cousin Mangan. 
 Won t you take the parrot, please ? " and 
 the young person held out the cage in her 
 left hand, and also extended her right hand 
 with the obvious purpose of having it 
 shaken. 
 
1 66 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 Mr. Mangan Brown did his best to dis 
 charge simultaneously the two duties thus 
 demanded of him, but as this involved cross 
 ing his hands in an awkward sort of way, 
 the result was not altogether graceful. " My 
 name is Mangan Brown," he said diplo 
 matically. 
 
 " Of course it is," answered the young 
 woman with a smile that showed what a 
 charming mouth and what prodigiously fine 
 teeth she had. And my name is Violet Car 
 mine. Don t you think Violet rather a pretty 
 name, cousin Mangan ? My mamma gave it 
 to me out of a novel. And don t you think 
 that I speak very good English ? I haven t 
 a strawberry mark on my left arm, nor any 
 thing like that, you know, to prove it, but I 
 am your cousin, your second cousin once re 
 moved, just as much as though I had straw 
 berry marks all over me. Don t look at me 
 in that doubtful sort of way, cousin Man 
 gan, it makes me feel quite uncomfortable. 
 I m sure if I am willing to believe in you, 
 you might be willing to believe in me. But 
 
XOBERSOA^S MEDIUM. l6/ 
 
 here s papa s letter ; just read it, and then 
 you ll believe in me, I m sure." 
 
 Mr. Mangan Brown, who was rather dazed 
 by this assault, took the letter and began to 
 read it. 
 
 " You re cousins, too, I suppose," said 
 Miss Carmine, turning to Van and Rose. 
 "Long cousin, won t you please go out to 
 the carriage and pay the man and bring in 
 my things?" As to you, you dear, little, 
 blue-eyed cousin, I think that you are simply 
 delightful, and I know that I shall love you 
 with all my heart, and I must kiss you right 
 away." And this Miss Carmine did with a 
 fervor that was quite in keeping with the 
 energy of her manner and words. 
 
 "I am very glad to see you, my dear," 
 said Mr. Mangan Brown, who had finished 
 the letter. "This is my nephew, Vandyke 
 Brown, and this is his wife, my niece Rose, 
 and I am sure that we all will do our best to 
 make you comfortable while you stay with 
 us. If if I was not quite so cordial as I 
 might have been just now, you must under- 
 
1 68 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 stand that your sudden arrival rather took me 
 by surprise, you know. Rose, take your cou 
 sin Violet up to Caledonia s room, and make 
 her comfortable. Van will carry up her bag. " 
 
 "And, Rose dear/ said Miss Carmine, 
 precisely imitating Mr. Mangan s tone and 
 manner, "take your cousin Violet to where 
 she will get something to eat, please. I 
 assure you that she is almost starving." In 
 her own proper voice she continued : " You 
 sweet, little, blue-eyed thing, it was worth 
 while coming all the way from Mexico just 
 to have a sight of you. You are a lucky 
 fellow, Van. I don t believe you half de 
 serve her. Tell the truth now, do you ? 
 But, of course, he ll say yes, Rose, so we 
 need not wait for his answer. Take me 
 along, dear, and let me wash myself and get 
 some food. You really have no idea how 
 hungry I am." And Miss Carmine, with 
 her arm around Rose s waist, vanished 
 through the open door. 
 
 " Cool sort of hand, this cousin of ours," 
 said Van to Mr. Mangan, when the bag and 
 
ROBFJtSOWS MEDIUM. l6g 
 
 the parrot had been carried tip-stairs and 
 Van had come down again to the veranda. 
 "And who is she, anyway? She really is 
 our cousin, I suppose." 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Mangan, in a tone that 
 did its best to be cheerful, " there is no 
 doubt about the relationship ; though it 
 certainly is rather a distant one. Her great 
 grandfather Carmine married my grand 
 father s, Bone Brown s, sister. Carmine had 
 a cochineal plantation in San Domingo, and 
 he was killed in the time of the insurrection. 
 In fact, his slaves burnt him. His son got 
 away and went over to Mexico, and the 
 family has been there ever since. The pres 
 ent Carmine, Violet s father, has a big 
 hacienda somewhere or another. We have 
 a consignment of hides from him every year, 
 and that s pretty much all that I know about 
 him; except that in one of his letters he 
 once said that he had married an American, 
 and was bringing up his daughters I don t 
 think he has any sons on the American 
 plan ; teaching them to be self-confident, 
 
I7O COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 and that sort of thing. And/ continued 
 Mr. Mangan reflectively, " if this young per 
 son is a fair specimen of the family, I should 
 say that his educational methods had been, 
 ah, quite a remarkable success." 
 
 "Yes," answered Van, dryly, "I think 
 they have. But to what fortunate circum 
 stance do we owe the pleasure of her descent 
 upon our inoffensive household ? " 
 
 " Don t be inhospitable, Van. I m sure 
 she s a nice girl, though she certainly is a 
 little a little odd, perhaps. Why, her 
 father writes that he has sent her up to see 
 something of American life under my care 
 he seems to take it for granted that I am 
 married and have a lot of daughters and 
 when her visit is ended (he suggests that she 
 shall stay with us for a year, or for six months 
 at the least), he wants me to come down to 
 his place with all my family and stay a year 
 or so with him. It s Mexican, I suppose, 
 visiting in this fashion. I always have un 
 derstood that they did not make much ac 
 count of time down there." 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. I/ 1 
 
 "But how on earth did she get here? 
 Surely she did not come up alone? " 
 
 " Really, Van," said Violet, stepping out 
 upon the veranda briskly, just in time to 
 hear these questions. " Really, Van, you 
 don t look stupid, but I think you must be. 
 I came, sir, in a delightful Pullman car, and 
 the Sefior and Seftora Moreno I wonder if 
 they can be distant relations of yours, cousin 
 Mangan ? It s the same name, you know 
 and all the thirteen, no, the fourteen, little 
 Morenos and their nurses and servants 
 brought me. We just filled the car nicely. 
 And oh ! we did have such a good time ! 
 Did you ever go anywhere in a Pullman car, 
 cousin Mangan ? If you didn t, you don t 
 know at all how nice it is. Not a bit like 
 the horrid diligencia, you know. And we 
 did have such fun ! I had my dear Pablo 
 he s the parrot, you know ; and the Sefiora 
 Moreno had a I don t know what the Eng 
 lish name is : it s a bird that whistles and 
 sings wonderfully; and little Josefiina had a 
 yellow kitten ; and at Chihuahua each of the 
 
1/2 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 seven boys bought a dear little dog. When 
 Pablo was screaming, and the bird was 
 whistling, and the kitten was fighting with 
 all the little dogs at once, really, we could 
 not hear ourselves speak. It was so funny 
 that we were laughing every bit of the 
 time. 
 
 "And, cousin Mangan, Sefior Moreno 
 wanted to come here with me and give me 
 into your hands. But I wouldn t let him. 
 They all stopped at a little hotel quite near 
 here, where Spanish is spoken for Sefior 
 Moreno does not speak a word of English, 
 and I have done all the talking for him ever 
 since we left Paso del Norte ; you have no 
 idea what nice things the conductors and 
 people have said to me about my English 
 and I begged Sefior Moreno to let me come 
 in the carriage by myself. I wanted to sur 
 prise you, you see. Have I surprised you, 
 cousin Mangan ? Tell me truly, have I ! " 
 
 And Mr. Mangan Brown answered, in a 
 tone that Miss Carmine, possibly, thought 
 unnecessarily serious : " Yes, my dear, I 
 
ROBERSOWS MEDIUM. 1/3 
 
 believe that I may say with perfect truth 
 you have ! " 
 
 NATURALLY, so quiet a household as was 
 this of Mr. Mangan Brown s was a good deal 
 upset by having interjected into it such a 
 whirlwind of a young woman as was this 
 Miss Violet Carmine. The household was 
 quieter than ever, of course, now that Miss 
 Caledonia and Verona were married off. 
 The wedding, by the way, was a prodigious 
 success. Mr. Mangan Brown gave away the 
 brides, successively, with a defiant one-down- 
 and-t -other-come-on air that was tremen 
 dously effective ; and young Orpiment went 
 through with the ceremony gallantly; and 
 Mr. Gamboge, who was badly scared, most 
 certainly would have said " Under these cir 
 cumstances Mr. Orpiment would have said 
 I will, " if Miss Caledonia, being on the 
 lookout for precisely this emergency, had 
 not pinched him ; and Miss Caledonia looked 
 so young and so pretty in her gray silk and 
 new back hair that nobody ever would have 
 
174 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 thought her a day over forty ; and Verona 
 just looked like the lovable, dignified angel 
 that she was. 
 
 But while Miss Carmine found no difficulty 
 in filling with her belongings the two rooms 
 lately occupied by Miss Caledonia and Ve 
 rona, it cannot be said that she herself filled 
 precisely the place in the household which 
 had been filled by these its departed mem 
 bers. Mr. Mangan tried loyally to make 
 the best of his Mexican kinswoman, but even 
 he found her at times as he deprecatingly 
 admitted to Rose a little wearing. He 
 tried to convince himself that Pablo s violent 
 remarks, in the Spanish tongue, at atrocious 
 hours of the morning, did not disturb him ; 
 he tried to believe that he admired the 
 spirited playfulness of the seven little Moreno 
 boys when they came to visit their country 
 woman, and with their countrywoman and 
 their seven Chihuahua dogs raced in and out 
 of the parlor windows and up and down the 
 veranda steps and all over the flower beds 
 in the front garden ; and he tried to think 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 1/5 
 
 that his kinswoman s habitual tendency to 
 ward the violent and the unexpected did not 
 annoy him. But it is certain that his efforts 
 in these, and in various other, directions 
 were not at all times successful. And yet 
 when Violet was not doing something out 
 rageous which, to be sure, was not often 
 she was such a frank, affectionate body that 
 not to love her was quite impossible. 
 
 " It s not herself, it s her extraordinary 
 education that s at fault, Van," Mr. Mangan 
 declared in extenuation of her expedition 
 with Rowney Mauve and without a chaperon 
 to Coney Island. " She s a good little thing, 
 but what with her queer life on her father s 
 hacienda, and the queer doctrines which her 
 father and mother have got into her head, 
 it s no wonder that her notions of propriety 
 are a little eccentric." 
 
 Being lectured about her Coney Island 
 trip, Violet manifested only astonishment. 
 "Why, cousin Mangan, I thought that here 
 in America girls could do just as they pleased. 
 That s what mamma has always told me. 
 
1/ COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 I m sure that she did what she pleased when 
 she was a girl. And mamma was very care 
 fully brought up and moved in very elegant 
 society, you know. Grandpapa, you know, 
 sold outfits at Fort Leavenworth to people 
 going across the Plains ; and he did a splen 
 did business, too, in the Santa Fe trade. 
 That was before the railroad, of course. 
 Were you ever out along the Santa Fe trail 
 before the Atchison road was built, cousin 
 Mangan ? It was a splendid trip to make. 
 Mamma came out that way to Santa F in 
 1860 with grandpapa. They had a lovely 
 time ; just as full of excitement as possible. 
 They had one fight with Indians before they 
 were fifty miles out from Council Grove, and 
 another just as they struck off from the 
 Arkansas, and another at the crossing of the 
 Cimarron ; and they were caught in a tre 
 mendous snow-storm in the Raton Moun 
 tains ; and in fording the Pecos they lost a 
 wagon and its team of six mules and grand 
 papa was so angry with the head teamster 
 for his carelessness, that he just picked him 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 177 
 
 up bodily and chucked him in after the mules, 
 and then shot at him when he tried to swim 
 ashore ; and mamma used to say in her droll 
 way that they never knew whether that team 
 ster died of drowning or shooting. 
 
 " It was in Santa Fe, you know, that papa 
 met mamma and fell in love with her. It 
 was very romantic. Mamma had made a 
 bet with one of the officers of the garrison 
 that she could ride a mustang that never had 
 been broken; and it ran away with her 
 which mamma did not mind a bit, of course 
 and just as she was waving her handker 
 chief to the men to show that she was win 
 ning the bet she found that the mustang was 
 heading right for the edge of the bluff she 
 was riding on the mesa close by old Fort 
 Marcy an d as she couldn t turn it she knew 
 that they both were going to have their 
 necks broken. And then papa, who was 
 with the officers, saw her danger and galloped 
 up just in time to lift her right out of the 
 saddle while both horses were running as 
 hard as ever they could run ; and papa man- 
 
COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 aged to turn his horse on the very edge of 
 the bluff, and the mustang went over the 
 bluff and was done for. Of course, after he 
 had saved her life this way, and after he had 
 fought a duel with the officer that mamma 
 bet with, because he said that mamma had 
 not won the bet after all, mamma had to 
 marry him. They had a lovely wedding in 
 the old church of San Miguel, and all the 
 officers were there the officer whom papa 
 wounded was ever so nice about it and came 
 on crutches and all the best people of the 
 town were there too, and they had a splendid 
 banquet at the Fonda afterward. You see, 
 there was no trouble about their being mar 
 ried, for mamma was born in the Church. 
 Her mother s folks, the Smalts, were German 
 Catholics, and, of course, her father was a 
 Catholic too, for he was Don Patricio O Jara, 
 you know. The O Jaras are a very noble 
 family, cousin Mangan ; some of them once 
 were kings, mamma says. 
 
 "And because she belonged to such a 
 grand family, and because grandpapa was so 
 
ROBERSOWS MEDIUM. 1/9 
 
 rich, mamma moved in the very highest cir 
 cles of Leavenworth society, you see ; and I 
 am sure that she went around with young 
 gentlemen just as much as she pleased, for 
 she has told me so, often. So what was the 
 harm in my going to Coney Island with Mr. 
 Mauve, cousin Mangan ? And we did have 
 sucli a lovely time ! Now you aren t angry 
 with me, are you ? Then kiss me, and say 
 you re not so. That s a dear. And now 
 we never will say another word about the 
 horrid place again." 
 
 Rowney Mauve, of course, knew that the 
 Coney Island expedition was all wrong ; and 
 he had the grace to profess to be sorry when 
 Van took it on himself to give him a lecture 
 about it. Rowney was a rather weak vessel, 
 morally as he admitted with a charming 
 frankness when anybody spoke to him on the 
 subject and he never made any very per 
 ceptible effort to strengthen himself. It 
 wasn t his ambition to be a whited sepulchre, 
 he would say, with an air of cheerful resigna 
 tion that, in its way, was quite irresistible. 
 
180 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 But, after all, he was not half a bad fellow at 
 bottom. His besetting sin was his laziness. 
 Unless he had some scheme of pleasure on 
 hand when he would rouse up and work 
 like a beaver he was about as lazy as a man 
 well could be. Had he ever buckled down 
 to work, there was the making of a first-rate 
 painter in him. Two or three landscapes 
 which, by some extraordinary chance, he had 
 finished, had been quite the talk of the town 
 and had sold promptly. But there he stopped. 
 " Of course, old man, I know that I 
 could sell a lot of pictures if I painted them," 
 he would say when Van upbraided him for 
 his laziness. "But what s the good of it? 
 I don t need the money. I ve got more 
 now than I know what to do with." And 
 then he would add, in the high moral key 
 and with the twinkle in the corners of his 
 blue eyes that always came there in nice ap 
 preciation of his own humbug, "And I 
 don t think it s right, Van, you know, to sell 
 my pictures and so take the bread out of the 
 mouths of the men who need it. No, I pre 
 
ROBEKSOWS MEDIUM. l8l 
 
 fer to be as that cheerful old father-in-law of 
 yours once said to me when he sent his 
 Baby s First Steps to the Young Genius s 
 exhibition, and the Young Geniuses cracked 
 it right back at him * a willing sacrifice for 
 Art s great sake to other men s success. 
 That s a noble sentiment, isn t it ? And now, 
 what do you say to joining me on board the 
 yacht to-morrow and sliding down to Saint 
 Augustine for a week or two ? There are 
 some types among those stunning Minorcan 
 girls down there that will make you a bigger 
 swell in art than ever if you will catch them 
 in time for the spring exhibition." The fact 
 of the matter was that Rowney Mauve, in 
 the matter of laziness, simply was incorrigible. 
 In connection with Miss Carmine, how 
 ever, not the least trace of Rowney s lazi 
 ness was perceptible. In her service he was 
 all energy. Why, he even went so far as to 
 finish one of his numerous unfinished pict 
 ures because, when Van and Rose brought 
 her to his studio one day, she took a fancy 
 to it and told him that she would like to see 
 
1 82 COLOR STUDIES, 
 
 it completed ! Among the people who 
 knew him this outburst of zealous labor was 
 regarded as being little short of miraculous ; 
 and Rowney, who was rather given to con 
 templative consideration of his own actions, 
 could not help at first feeling that way about 
 it himself. As the result of careful self- 
 analysis, however, he came to the conclusion 
 that his sudden access of energy was not 
 the result of a miracle, but of love ! 
 
 Being really in love was a new experience 
 for Rowney, and he did not quite under 
 stand it. At one time or another he had 
 been spoons on lots of girls ; but being 
 spoons and being genuinely in love, as he 
 now perceived, were conditions of the heart 
 which have no relation to each other what 
 ever. Looking at his case critically, he was 
 satisfied that his decline and fall had begun 
 on that October day, now four months past, 
 when he and Miss Carmine had defied the 
 proprieties by going down together to Coney 
 Island. They had seen the races, which 
 Violet enjoyed immensely, and had had a 
 
ROBERSOWS MEDIUM. 183 
 
 capital little lunch ; and after the lunch they 
 had taken a long walk on the deserted beach 
 toward Far Rockaway. Rowney knew all 
 the while, of course, that they hadn t any 
 business whatever to be off alone on a cruise 
 of this nature ; and his knowledge, I am 
 sorry to say, made him regard the cruise in 
 the light of a lark of quite exceptional jollity. 
 Violet, not having the faintest suspicion that 
 she was anything less than a model of 
 American decorum, simply was in raptures. 
 With a delightful frankness she repeatedly 
 told Rowney what a good time she was 
 having ; and how like it was to the good 
 times that her mother, the scion of the royal 
 house of O Jara, used to have in company 
 with the young Chesterfields of Fort Leaven- 
 worth society. 
 
 Altogether, it had been an original sort of 
 an experience for Rowney ; and for this 
 easy-going young gentleman original ex- 
 periences had an exceeding great charm. 
 Looking back, therefore, in the light of sub 
 sequent events, upon that particular day, he 
 
1 84 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 decided that it was the Coney Island expe 
 dition that had sapped the foundations of 
 his previously well-fortified heart. Anyhow, 
 without regard to when it began, he felt 
 satisfied in his own mind that he was in love 
 now, right over head and ears. 
 
 Roberson, whose studio was just across 
 the passage, happened to drop in upon him 
 at the very moment that he had arrived at 
 this, to him, astonishing conclusion. Rober 
 son was not a very promising sort of a speci 
 men of a confidant, but Rowney was so full 
 of his discovery that before he could check 
 himself he had blurted out : " Old man, I ve 
 been and gone and done it ! I m in love ! " 
 
 "No! Are you though, really?" said 
 Roberson, in his funny little mincing way. 
 "Why, that s very interesting. And who 
 are you in love with ? " 
 
 By this time Rowney had perceived the 
 absurdity, not to say the stupidity, of taking 
 Roberson into his confidence. So he laughed 
 and answered : 
 
 " With my own laziness, of course. I ve 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 185 
 
 been thinking what a precious ass I have 
 been making of myself in working over this 
 confounded picture. Now that it s finished, 
 I don t know what to do with it, and I ve 
 wasted a solid month that I might have de 
 voted to scientific loafing. And it s because 
 I see my folly and am determined to be wise 
 again that I ve fallen in love with my own 
 laziness once more." 
 
 "Oh! " said Roberson, in a tone of dis 
 appointment, " I thought that you were in 
 earnest ; and I was ever so glad, for I really 
 am in love, Rowney, in love awfully ! And 
 and I thought that if you were in love too, 
 you d like to hear about it. Wouldn t you 
 like to hear about it anyway ? " 
 
 " Of course I would, old man. Just wait 
 till I fill my pipe ; I can be more sympa 
 thetic over a pipe, you know. Now crack 
 away," Rowney continued, as he settled 
 himself comfortably in a big chair and pulled 
 hard at his pipe to give it a good start. 
 " Now crack away, my stricken deer. 
 Though the herd all forsake thee, thy home 
 
1 86 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 is still here, you know. Rest on this bosom 
 and tell your tale of sorrow. Are you very 
 hard hit, Roberson ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I am, indeed, I am," groaned 
 Roberson. " You see, its its this queer 
 Mexican girl who is staying with the 
 Browns " 
 
 " The dickens it is ! " exclaimed Rowney, 
 suddenly sitting bolt upright in his chair, 
 and glaring at Roberson through the smoke 
 as though he wanted to glare his head off. 
 
 " Don t, please don t look at me like that, 
 Mauve. Surely there s no reason why you 
 should be angry with me." 
 
 " N no," answered Rowney slowly, " I 
 don t think there is." And then, as he sank 
 back in the chair, and his ferocious expres 
 sion gave place to a quiet grin, he added 
 briskly : " No, I m sure there s not. I was 
 surprised, that s all. I always look like that 
 when I m a good deal surprised." 
 
 " Well, I must say I m glad I don t sur 
 prise you often. You have no idea how 
 savage you looked, old fellow. I m not 
 
ROBERSON 1 S MEDIUM. l8/ 
 
 easily frightened, you know," and the little 
 man put on a look of inoffensive defiance as 
 he spoke that gave him something the air of 
 a valorously-disposed lamb ; " but I do as 
 sure you that the way you looked at me 
 gave me quite a turn. Just let me know, 
 won t you, when you feel yourself beginning 
 to be surprised the next time, so that I may 
 be prepared for it ? " 
 
 "Til do better than that, Roberson ; I ll 
 promise not to let you surprise me. And 
 now go ahead with the love story, old man ; 
 I m quite ashamed of myself for having in 
 terrupted you so rudely." 
 
 " There isn t any more of it to tell," said 
 Roberson, dolefully. " I wish there was." 
 
 " Nonsense, man ! Why, that isn t any 
 love story at all. There must be more of it. 
 What have you said to her ? What has she 
 said to you ? " 
 
 " Nothing," answered Roberson, dismally. 
 " That s just it, you see. That s what makes 
 me so low in my mind over it. I haven t 
 said anything, and she hasn t said anything. 
 
1 88 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 If either of us had said anything I d know 
 better where I was. But neither of us has 
 spoken, and so I don t know where I am at 
 all not the least bit in the world." Rober- 
 son hid his face in his hands and groaned. 
 
 Presently he went on again: "I have 
 made efforts to speak, Rowney ; I ve made 
 repeated efforts but, somehow, they ve 
 none of them come to anything. Indeed, 
 I ve never had but one fair chance, for every 
 time, just as I ve got to the point when I 
 was ready to say something, something that 
 really would have a meaning to it, you know, 
 something has happened to stop me." 
 
 " And what stopped you that one time 
 when something didn t happen to stop you ? " 
 
 "You mustn t think me weak, Rowney, 
 but but the truth is that I was so dreadfully 
 upset that what I wanted to say wouldn t 
 come at all. We were sitting on the veran 
 da, the moon was shining, and all the rest 
 were inside listening to Mrs. Orpiment sing 
 ing. I couldn t have had a better chance, 
 you see." 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 
 
 " I should think not ! " growled Rowney. 
 
 " But the more I tried the more the right 
 words wouldn t come. And what do you 
 suppose I ended by asking her ? " 
 
 " If she didn t think you were an infernal 
 idiot. And of course she said yes." 
 
 " Don t be hard on me, Mauve. You ve 
 no idea what a trying situation it was. No, 
 what I ended by asking her was, what was 
 the food most commonly eaten in Mexico. 
 I didn t say it in just a commonplace way, 
 you know. I threw a great deal of feeling 
 into my voice, and I looked at her beseech 
 ingly. And and I think, old fellow, that 
 she knew that my words meant more than 
 they expressed, for there was a strange 
 tremor in her own voice as she answered, 
 tortillas and frijoles ; and as soon as she 
 had uttered those brief words she got up and 
 rushed into the parlor, as though something 
 were after her. This was a very extraordi 
 nary thing for her to do, and it shows to my 
 mind that she did not dare to trust herself 
 with me for a moment longer. And I am 
 
190 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 the more confirmed in this opinion by the 
 fact that when I followed her, in a minute or 
 two, for at first I was too much surprised by 
 her sudden departure to stir, I found her 
 leaning upon Mrs. Brown s shoulder in hys 
 terics laughing and crying all at once, I 
 solemnly assure you. Don t you think there s 
 hope for me in all this, Rowney ? Don t 
 you think that her saying tortillas and fri- 
 joles in that strange, tremulous tone, and 
 then having hysterics after it, meant more 
 than I could understand at the time ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered Rowney, decidedly, " I 
 think it did. To be quite frank with you, 
 Roberson, I don t think that you fully under 
 stand just what she meant even yet." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, thank you, Mauve. You 
 don t know how much good you are doing 
 me by your kind, encouraging words." 
 
 Rowney s conscience did prick him a little 
 when Roberson said this but only a little, 
 for his resentment of what he styled in his 
 own mind Roberson s confounded impu 
 dence in venturing to make love to Violet, 
 
ROBERSOWS MEDIUM. IQI 
 
 was too keen for him to give the unlucky 
 little man mercy in the least degree. 
 
 For a while there was silence. Mauve 
 pulled away steadily at his pipe, and Rober- 
 son stared gloomily into vacancy and gently 
 wrung his hands. At last he spoke : 
 
 " Rowney, do you believe that there is 
 anything in in spiritualism ?" 
 
 " There s dollars in it, if you only can 
 make it go. Why ? Are you thinking of 
 taking it up as a profession ? It s rather a 
 shady profession, of course ; but you ought 
 to make more out of it than you do out of 
 your still-life stuff. The properties wouldn t 
 take much capital to start with. Two rooms 
 in an out-of-the-way street Grove Street 
 would do nicely ; some curtains, and a 
 table ; that s all you d need to begin with. 
 If things went along well, and you found 
 that there was a paying demand for materi 
 alizations, then you d have to get some cos 
 tumes. And what awfully good fun it will 
 be ! " Rowney continued, as he warmed up 
 to the subject. " Do you know, I ve a great 
 
1 92 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 mind to go in with you. It will be no end 
 of a lark." 
 
 " Oh, you don t understand me at all, 
 Mauve. I don t want to be a medium. 
 What I mean is, do you believe in the 
 reality of spiritual manifestations ? " 
 
 Rowney was about to say spiritual 
 fiddle-sticks," but checked himself, and 
 answered diplomatically : " Well, you see, 
 I haven t much experience in that line, and 
 so my opinion isn t especially valuable. 
 Have you ever tackled the spirits yourself, 
 Roberson ? " 
 
 " Ye-es," answered Roberson, hesitat 
 ingly, " I have." 
 
 " And what sort of a time did you have 
 with them ? " 
 
 " Well but you won t laugh at me, will 
 you, Mauve ? I m really in earnest, you 
 know, and if you only want to make a joke 
 of it, I won t go on." 
 
 " Don t you see how serious I am ? " 
 
 " Well, some of the spirits did tell me 
 very wonderful things. Do you remember 
 
ROBERSOWS MEDIUM. IQ3 
 
 that picture that I painted a year ago last 
 winter peas, and asparagus, and Bermuda 
 potatoes, and strawberries, grouped around 
 a shad that I called The First Breath of 
 Spring ? I don t think that you can have 
 forgotten it, for it was a noble work. Well, 
 the spirit of Jan Weenix told me to paint 
 that picture, and promised me that it would 
 bring me fortune and fame." 
 
 " Why, I saw it in your studio only yes 
 terday, with a lot of other stuff piled up in a 
 corner. Not much fame or fortune there, 
 apparently. If that s the sort of game that 
 the spirits come on you, I should say that 
 they lie like Ananias and Sapphira." 
 
 "Hush! don t speak that way, please. 
 We never know what Form hovers near." 
 (Roberson said this so earnestly that, 
 involuntarily, Rowney glanced over his 
 shoulder.) " It is true that the promise 
 made by the spirit of Jan Weenix has not 
 yet been fulfilled ; but, you know, there s no 
 telling at what moment it will be. Every 
 time that I hear a strange step on the stairs, 
 
194 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 I say to myself : He comes ! The Pur 
 chaser comes and with him come Fortune 
 and Fame ! And though I m bound to 
 admit I haven t seen the least sign of him 
 yet, that only assures me that I have so 
 much the less time to wait for his coming. 
 
 " Yes, I believe in the spirits thoroughly, 
 Mauve. Every action of my life, for years 
 past, has been guided by them. And I 
 believe that it is because I have not their 
 guidance in this great matter of my love 
 that I am going all wrong." 
 
 " What s the reason they won t guide you 
 now ? Have you had a row with em ? " 
 
 " I do wish that you wouldn t speak in 
 that irreverent way. No, the trouble is that 
 the medium whom I have been in the habit 
 of consulting for years has has gone away. 
 In point of fact " Roberson blushed a little, 
 " he has been arrested for swindling. It is a 
 great outrage, of course, and I am desper 
 ately sorry for him. But I am more sorry 
 for myself. You see, getting a new medium 
 is a very difficult matter. It is not only that 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 195 
 
 he must be a good medium intrinsically, but 
 he must possess a nature that easily becomes 
 en rapport with mine. When I began this 
 conversation, it was in the faint hope that 
 you also might be a believer and might be 
 able to help me in my quest ; but I see now 
 that this hope has no foundation. I must 
 search on, alone and until I find what I re 
 quire I shall toss aimlessly upon the ocean 
 of life like a rudderless ship in a storm. 
 Don t think me ungrateful, old man, because 
 I am so melancholy. Your sympathy has 
 cheered me up ever so much. Indeed, I 
 haven t been so light-hearted since I don t 
 know when " and with tears in his eyes and 
 sorrow stamped upon every line of his face 
 Roberson gently minced his way out of the 
 room. 
 
 " I say, Roberson !" Rowney called after 
 him. " I ve a notion that I know a medium 
 who is just the very card you want. I ll 
 look him up, and if he s what I think he is, 
 I ll pass him along to you." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, thank you very much, 
 
196 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 Mauve," said Roberson, putting his head in 
 at the door again. " It s ever so good of 
 you to think of taking this trouble on my ac 
 count. But if you will find me a new me 
 dium, a good one, you know, that I can trust 
 implicitly, you really will make a new man 
 of me." And uttering these hopeful words 
 Roberson closed the door. 
 
 For an hour or more Rowney Mauve con 
 tinued to sit and smoke in the big chair. 
 During this period he grinned frequently, 
 and once he laughed aloud. When at last 
 he stood up and knocked the ashes from his 
 third pipe, it was with the satisfied air of a 
 man who has formulated an Idea. 
 
 AT the outset of this narrative the fact has 
 been mentioned that Violet Carmine was a 
 pickle. The additional fact may be appro 
 priately mentioned here that a residence of 
 five months in the stimulating atmosphere of 
 New York had not by any means tended to 
 make her less picklesome. Except in the 
 case of Mr. Mangan Brown, who stood by 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 197 
 
 her loyally, she was the despair of the Elev 
 enth Street household ; and she was not favor 
 ably commented upon abroad. After that 
 dinner at the Gamboges when Violet flirted 
 so outrageously with young Orpiment that 
 even Verona s placid spirit was ruffled Mrs. 
 Gamboge said to Mr. Gamboge, in the pri 
 vacy of their own chamber, that she was very 
 sure that this wild Mexican-Irish girl would 
 bring all their gray hairs down in sorrow to 
 the grave. Mr. Gamboge, who had a rather 
 soft spot in his heart for Violet, and to whom 
 the mystery of Miss Caledonia s back hair 
 was a mystery no longer, glanced shrewdly 
 at the toilet-table, grinned in a manner that 
 was highly exasperating, and made no reply. 
 Mr. Gamboge regretted his adoption of this 
 line of rejoinder ; but Mrs. Gamboge hav 
 ing suffered peace to be restored when she 
 found herself in possession of the Indian 
 shawl for which her heart had panted all win 
 ter long inclined to the opinion that bru 
 tality was not without its compensating ad 
 vantages, after all. 
 
IQ8 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 And being a pickle, Violet threw herself, 
 heart and soul, into the part assigned to her 
 by Rowney Mauve in the realization of his 
 Idea. 
 
 " It s delightful, Rowney ! "-" Mamma 
 always used to call her gentlemen friends at 
 Fort Leavenworth by their first names, cou 
 sin Mangan. I am sure that you might let 
 me do what mamma did," Miss Carmine had 
 observed with dignity, when Mr. Mangan 
 had suggested to her one day that this some 
 what unceremonious mode of address might 
 be modified advantageously. 
 
 "It s delightful, Rowney! Really, I 
 didn t think that you had the wit to think of 
 doing anything so funny. Of course, I ll 
 keep as dark about it as possible. If that 
 sweet little Rose were to get wind of it, I 
 believe she d faint ; and funny little old 
 cousin Caledonia would have a fit ; and Van 
 would be seriously horrified and disagreeable. 
 And even cousin Mangan, who is the dear 
 est dear that ever was, wouldn t like it ; and 
 he d end by coaxing me out of it, I m sure. 
 
ROBERSON^S MEDIUM. 1 99 
 
 And I don t want to be coaxed out of it, 
 Rowney, for it will be the best bit of fun 
 that I ever had anything to do with. But 
 I ll have to have somebody along, you 
 know. And I ll tell you who it will be : 
 that nice Rose d Antimoine ! She s just as 
 bad as they all say I am. I don t think 
 that I m very bad, Rowney; do you? Only 
 she s sly, and knows how to pretend that 
 she isn t. May I tell her about it, and ask 
 her to take a hand ? You d better say yes, 
 for unless she comes in I ll stay out, you 
 know." 
 
 Rowney, who was acquainted only with 
 society young American women, and to 
 whom the natural young American woman s 
 instinct of self-preservation, that is most 
 shrewdly manifested in her determination 
 always to have one of her sex with her 
 in her escapades, was unknown, was rather 
 staggered by this proposition, and was dis 
 posed to raise objections to it. But Miss 
 Carmine gave him to understand in short 
 order that his objections could not be enter- 
 
200 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 tained for a moment. He would do what 
 she wanted, she told him decidedly, or he 
 would not do anything at all. And Rowney, 
 not altogether unwillingly, for he did not 
 want to get Violet into a scrape, gave in. 
 Therefore the aid of Madame d Antimoine 
 was sought, and was given with effusion ; 
 for marriage had not tended to make her 
 take a view of life much more serious than 
 that which she had entertained when her 
 scandalous flirtation with the " Marquis" 
 had driven poor Jaune almost to extremities. 
 So these three lively young people laid their 
 reprehensible heads together, and if Rober- 
 son s ears did not burn, it was no fault of 
 theirs. 
 
 It was the morning after this conference 
 that Rowney Mauve dropped in upon Rober- 
 son in his studio. 
 
 " Oh ! I m ever so glad to see you, Mauve," 
 said Roberson. " I was just wishing for some 
 body to come in to tell me about this thing. 
 I m not satisfied with it exactly, and yet I 
 don t know what there is wrong about it 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 2OI 
 
 either. I must explain though what I m 
 driving at. I call it The Real and the 
 Ideal/ though I ve been thinking that pos 
 sibly High Life and Low Life will be better. 
 On this side, you see, I have a pile of tur 
 nips and a cabbage and a mackerel, and on 
 this side a vase of roses and a glass globe 
 with goldfish in it. The idea s capital con 
 trast and that sort of thing, you know. But 
 somehow the picture don t seem to come 
 together. I ve changed the composition two 
 or three times, but I don t seem to get what 
 I want. I do wish that you d give me your 
 advice about it, what you honestly think, 
 you know." 
 
 "To tell the truth, Roberson, the way 
 you ve got it now the things all jumbled 
 together in a heap like that it looks a good 
 deal like nine-pins after the first ball has 
 cracked into em." 
 
 "No? does it though? Why, I do be 
 lieve you re right, Mauve. I ve been think 
 ing myself that perhaps the composition was 
 too scattery. And yet I think there s a good 
 
202 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 effect in the way that they rise gradually from 
 this one turnip here on the left to the roses 
 on the right. I can t paint out those roses 
 again, they re too good don t you think 
 that they re better than Lambdin s ? I do. 
 But I might move the globe of goldfish over 
 to the left, and then have the mackerel and 
 the vegetables along in a row between it and 
 the roses. How do you think that would 
 do ? I ve got to do something in a hurry, 
 for the mackerel is beginning to smell horri 
 bly. I hope you don t find it very bad. I 
 put carbolic acid over it this morning. Oh 
 dear ! Mauve. I don t seem to be able to 
 do anything in these days ; now now," and 
 Roberson s voice became lower and had a 
 tone of awe in it, " that I no longer have a 
 Guide, you know." 
 
 " That s just what I came to speak to you 
 about, Roberson." 
 
 " Goodness gracious ! Mauve, you don t 
 mean to say that you have that you have 
 found a Medium ? " exclaimed Roberson in 
 great excitement, springing up from his chair 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 203 
 
 and dropping his palette and mahlstick with 
 a clatter. 
 
 " That is just what I do mean to say, old 
 man ; but I wish that you wouldn t jump 
 around so. It disturbs the atmosphere and 
 makes the smell of the fish worse." 
 
 " Oh ! I beg your pardon. Just wait a 
 minute and I ll put some more carbolic acid 
 on it. Now tell me about him. Is he really 
 a good medium? Have you tested him? 
 Is he knocks, or voices, or a slate ? Is he " 
 
 " He isn t he at all ; he s a she." 
 
 "A she ?" 
 
 " Yes, a woman medium, you know." 
 
 <( Oh," said Roberson, doubtfully, and with 
 less brightness in his face, " I ve never tried 
 a woman medium. Do you think they re 
 apt to be as good as men ? " 
 
 " Not as a rule," Rowney answered, in 
 the grave, careful tone of one who had given 
 the subject a very thorough investigation and 
 whose decision was final. " No, not as a 
 rule ; but as an exception, yes. Dugald 
 Stuart, in his admirable chapter on clairvoy- 
 
204 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 ance spiritualism hadn t come up in his 
 day, you know says that the delicate, 
 super-sensitive nerve-fibre of women renders 
 them far more keenly acute to psychic influ 
 ences than are men. It is for this reason 
 that women, and women only, have given us 
 trustworthy evidences of clairvoyant phenom 
 ena. The eminent Professor Crookes, 
 during his recent exhaustive and most fruit 
 ful experiments upon the element to which 
 he has given the name of psychic force, has 
 arrived at a conclusion which substantially is 
 identical with that arrived at by the great 
 Scotch philosopher. He says, clearly and 
 positively, while the majority of my experi 
 ments with women have been failures, it is 
 a notable fact that of all my experiments the 
 only ones which have been completely and 
 entirely satisfactory have been those in which 
 the operating force was a woman ; and from 
 this fact I conclude that only in the exqui 
 sitely sensitive nervous structure of women 
 can proper media for the most interesting, 
 the most astonishing class of psychic phe- 
 
KOBERSON S MEDIUM. 205 
 
 nomena be found. Now what can you say in 
 opposition to this positively expressed opin 
 ion of the great English scientist? Surely, 
 Roberson, you will not have the temerity, 
 not to say the downright impudence, to set 
 up your opinion, based only on your own 
 meagre experience, against that of this pro 
 found investigator ; against the dictum of the 
 man who has invented the Radiometer ? " 
 
 Roberson was greatly astonished, as well 
 as greatly impressed, by this eloquent and 
 learned outburst and he was a good deal 
 puzzled, later, when his most diligent search 
 through the works of the authors named 
 failed to discover the passages, or anything 
 at all like them, that Rowney had quoted. 
 
 " What a wonderful fellow you are, 
 Mauve ! " he said, admiringly. " I had no 
 idea that you had gone into the matter in 
 this serious way." 
 
 " Well, when I set out to know anything, 
 I do like to know it pretty thoroughly," 
 Rowney answered airily. " But I hope that 
 what I ve said has weakened your prejudice 
 
206 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 against women-mediums. A man of your 
 strong intellect, Roberson, has no right 
 to entertain a prejudice like that. Of 
 course, though, if you don t believe in 
 women-mediums, we will say no more about 
 this one that I have found for you." 
 
 " Oh, please don t speak that way, 
 Mauve. I see that I have been very 
 foolish, and I want to meet this one very 
 much, indeed. Who is she ? " 
 
 " She s aTheosoph." 
 
 " A what?" 
 
 "A Theosoph a member of that won 
 derful and mysterious Oriental Cult that 
 Madame Blavatsky so ably has expounded. 
 But, of course, you know all about Theo- 
 sophism ? " 
 
 " I know about it in a general way, you 
 know. It s something like like animal 
 magnetism, isn t it ? " 
 
 " Yes, it s something of that general 
 nature." Rowney found that he was getting 
 into rather deep water himself, and he 
 floundered a little in getting out of it. 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 2VJ 
 
 il Yes, it s like animal magnetism in a gen 
 eral sort of way. And having this magnetic 
 basis, you see, of course, it affords a won 
 derfully perfect channel for communication 
 with the spirit world." 
 
 " Of course," Roberson assented. 
 
 "And this particular medium," Rowney 
 continued, speaking with confidence again, 
 now that the awkward turn in the conversa 
 tion was safely past, " is without exception 
 the most extraordinary medium that even 
 Theosophism has produced. She does 
 everything that ordinary mediums do, and 
 some most astonishing things that they 
 don t. Of course you ve seen materializa 
 tions, Roberson ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, repeatedly." 
 
 " But of people who were dead ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Well, this Theosoph will show you, will 
 actually show you materializations of the 
 living." 
 
 " You don t say ! " said Roberson, greatly 
 interested. 
 
208 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 t( It s a fact, I assure you. This has never 
 been done before, and even she has been 
 able to do it only recently after twelve 
 years of study among the oldest Pajamas of 
 the Cult in India. It s wonderful ! And 
 what is more, she can materialize inanimate 
 objects can make things in distant places 
 appear visibly before your eyes. Of course 
 she can do the trance business, and knocks, 
 and slate writing, and all that sort of thing, 
 you might say, with one hand." 
 
 " Wonderful ! wonderful ! " exclaimed 
 Roberson. 
 
 "Right you are, my boy. She is the 
 most wonderful medium that the world, at 
 least the Western World, has ever known. 
 She is she is what a Colorado newspaper 
 person would call a regular daisy, and no 
 mistake ! " 
 
 " And when can I see her, and where ? 
 Oh, Mauve, my heart is beginning to 
 brighten again. I m sure that she will set 
 me in the right way again about my pict 
 ures, and and about Violet, you know." 
 
KOBERSOA^S MEDIUM. 209 
 
 It was with some difficulty that Rowney 
 restrained his strong desire to box Rober- 
 son s ears for this free use of Miss Carmine s 
 name. But he did restrain himself, and 
 answered: "You shall see her this very 
 night, and in my studio. She is here in 
 New York only for a day or two she 
 starts for India again at the end of the 
 week and has no regular place for her 
 seances, so I have arranged with her to 
 come to my studio this evening at eight 
 o clock. Will that suit you ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes; and thank you a thousand 
 times, Mauve. I shall be grateful to you 
 all my life for what you have done." 
 
 " Will you, though ? Don t be too sure 
 about that," said Rowney with a queer 
 smile. " Good-by till eight o clock. Phew ! 
 how that fish does smell! " 
 
 EGYPTIAN darkness reigned in Rowney 
 Mauve s studio when Roberson entered it 
 at eight o clock that evening. Roberson did 
 not more than half like this gloom and mys- 
 
210 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 tery. Rowney, leading him to a seat, felt 
 that he was trembling. " Has the Indian 
 lady come yet ? " he asked in a shaky voice. 
 
 " The Theosoph ? Yes, here she is. Per 
 mit me to present to you, madame, an ear 
 nest seeker after truth." 
 
 " It is well," was answered in a deep 
 voice that quavered as though with sup 
 pressed emotion. "What seeks this earn 
 est seeker ? " 
 
 " Now, crack away and ask about the 
 picture. You d better begin with that, and 
 take the other matter afterward," Rowney 
 whispered. 
 
 " Mustn t I call up an advising spirit first ? 
 That s the usual way of beginning a stance, 
 you know." 
 
 " Oh, of course, that s what I meant you 
 to do," Rowney answered, in some slight 
 confusion. 
 
 "Is the spirit of Jan Weenix present?" 
 asked Roberson. 
 
 There was a regular volley of raps, and 
 then the deep voice answered " He is ! " 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 211 
 
 (" // is ; there is no sex in spirits," mur 
 mured Rowney, sotto voce.) 
 
 " I am ever so glad to meet you again," 
 Roberson said, quite in the tone of one who 
 greets an old friend after a long separation. 
 " I m dreadfully muddled about this new 
 picture of mine, High Life and Low Life, 
 you know. Won t you please tell me what 
 I must do to get it right ? " 
 
 " Behold it as the great Weenix himself 
 has painted it ! " and the deep voice was 
 deeper, and also shakier than ever. 
 
 " Now you will see one of the wonderful 
 materializations that I told you about," 
 Rowney whispered. " Only the most highly- 
 gifted even of the Theosophs can do this 
 sort of thing. Look ! " 
 
 In one corner of the room there appeared 
 a soft, hazy glow, covering a space of about 
 three feet square. The haze passed slowly 
 away, and as the brightness increased, a picture 
 became visible. It was Roberson s picture, 
 sure enough, but the composition had been 
 modified materially. The rosebush was in 
 
212 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 the centre ; on one side of it was the glass 
 globe, filled with the vegetables ; on the 
 other side was the mackerel, standing straight 
 up on its tail, while the four goldfish, stand 
 ing on their tails and touching fins, were 
 circling around it in a waltz. 
 
 " Oh ! " was all that Roberson could say 
 on beholding this astonishing rearrangement 
 of his work. 
 
 " Now, isn t that wonderful ? " Rowney 
 asked impressively. 
 
 " Ye es, it certainly is," Roberson 
 answered with hesitation. "At least it s 
 very wonderful as a materialization ; indeed, 
 I never saw anything like it. But but 
 really, you know, Mauve, this arrangement 
 of the picture is a most extraordinary one. 
 Is it possible, do you think, that a malignant 
 spirit has obtained control of the medium ? 
 You know that does happen sometimes." 
 
 " Like getting the wrong fellow at the 
 telephone," suggested Rowney. 
 
 " Precisely," Roberson answered. 
 
 " And what do you do then ? With the 
 
ROBERSOWS MEDIUM. 213 
 
 telephone you ring for the exchange again 
 and swear at them. But that wouldn t do 
 with the spirits, I suppose." 
 
 Of course not," said Roberson, a good 
 deal horrified. " No, the proper thing to do 
 when this happens is to drop all attempts to 
 communicate with the spirit that has been 
 called, and the effort of which to come has 
 been frustrated, and to continue the seance 
 with others less susceptible to malignant in 
 fluences." 
 
 " With the Theosophs the custom differs 
 a little. Being more potent than ordinary 
 mediums, they usually insist upon the at 
 tendance of the spirit called. Still, it might 
 be well in this case to adopt the plan that 
 you mention. Suppose you go right ahead 
 and demand a materialization of Miss Car 
 mine, and then have things out with her." 
 
 " You don t mean to say that the medium 
 can do that?" 
 
 " Indeed I do. Didn t I tell you that 
 these Theosophs could materialize living 
 people ? You don t seem to understand, 
 
214 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 Roberson, what a tremendous power is here 
 at our command. But I ll manage it for 
 you." And Rowney continued in a deep, 
 solemn tone: "Madam, I conjure you to 
 compel the visible presence of the spirit of 
 Violet Carmine." 
 
 As Rowney ceased speaking, the materi 
 alized picture vanished, the hazy light dis 
 appeared, and profound darkness came 
 again. Then the phenomenon of the grad 
 ual appearance of the light was repeated ; 
 but this time they beheld behind the misty 
 veil not Roberson s reconstructed picture, 
 but the wraith of Violet herself. Oddly 
 enough, the beautiful apparition seemed to 
 be doing its best not to laugh. 
 
 Roberson was so overpowered by this 
 astounding sight that he was speechless. It 
 was monstrous, this awful power that could 
 subject a living being to its sway, so far be 
 yond anything that he ever had encountered 
 in the course of his spiritual investigations, 
 that a great fear seized him. Cold perspiration 
 started upon his forehead, and his knees shook. 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 21 5 
 
 " Well, you goose, now that I m here 
 haven t you anything to say for yourself? 
 Can t you even ask me about what people 
 eat in Mexico?" Voice, tone, and manner 
 were Violet s to the life. It was too much 
 for Roberson. His demoralization was com 
 plete. 
 
 " Mauve ! Mauve ! for heaven s sake help 
 me to get away ! This is no ordinary me 
 dium. It is the very Power of Evil that we 
 have invoked I " 
 
 " That s a pretty compliment to pay a lady, 
 now isn t it ? " and the apparition spoke with 
 a certain amount of sharpness. " As I didn t 
 come here to be called bad names, I shall 
 l eav e_and the next time that you have a 
 chance to speak to me you ll be apt to know 
 it, my lad ! " with these decisive words Miss 
 Carmine s wraith faded away, and the misty 
 light slowly vanished into darkness. 
 
 "Oh take me away! take me away!" 
 moaned Roberson feebly. In his terror he 
 had sunk down in a little heap of misery 
 upon the floor. 
 
2l6 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 "All right, old man. Just wait half a 
 minute, though, until I speak a word to the 
 Theosoph." 
 
 Roberson heard Rowney cross the room ; 
 perceived a momentary gleam of light such 
 as might come when a curtain that conceals 
 a lamp is quickly raised and quickly dropped 
 again and then came the sound of whisper 
 ing. Roberson s fear was leaving him a lit 
 tle now ; but in the darkness, without Row 
 ney to guide him, he did not dare to stir. 
 Suddenly the whispering, becoming less 
 guarded, was audible. 
 
 "You shan t! Go away! " 
 
 " I shall ! I can t help it ! You ve no idea 
 what a lovely ghost you made ! " 
 
 Then there was a sound of a scuffle, that 
 ended in a crash and there, seen in a blaze 
 of light over the fallen screen, was Rowney 
 Mauve in the very act of kissing Violet Car 
 mine. The whole apparatus of the trick was 
 disclosed. In the part of the screen that re 
 mained standing was the square hole where 
 the picture had been visible ; and the gradual 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 
 
 coming and going of the light, and its misti 
 ness, were accounted for by the dozen or so 
 of gauze curtains arranged to draw back one 
 by one. And there was the picture itself 
 even more shocking when seen clearly than 
 when hidden by the misty veil. On the 
 outer side of the screen, where she could man 
 age the curtains, stood Rose d Antimoine. 
 
 As he sat there on the floor and perceived 
 by these several disclosures how careful the 
 preparations had been for making a fool of 
 him, and as he painfully realized how admir 
 ably well he had been fooled, fear ceased to 
 hold possession of Roberson, and in its place 
 came spiteful rage. 
 
 " It s a nasty, mean trick that you have 
 played on me ; and I ll get even with you for 
 it, see if I don t ! You ought to be ashamed 
 of yourselves, every one of you ; and I ll 
 make you ashamed, too, before I get through 
 with you." 
 
 " Oh, come now, old fellow, it was only a 
 joke you know. Don t be unreasonable 
 about it and raise a row." 
 
2l8 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 "You may think it a joke, Mauve, to have 
 these ladies here at your studio at night, and 
 to go on in that scandalous way with Miss 
 Carmine, but I don t think that either Mr. 
 d Antimoine or Mr. Brown will see anything 
 much of a joke in it ! Oh, you ll all repent 
 this ! I ll teach you to play tricks ! I ll fix 
 you, you mean things ! " Roberson s voice, 
 never a deep one, rose to a shrill treble as he 
 delivered these threats, and in a perfect little 
 whirl of fury he rushed out of the room. 
 
 The fact must be admitted that the three 
 conspirators, being thus delivered over into 
 the hands of their intended victim, were 
 pretty badly crest-fallen. They knew that 
 Roberson certainly had it in his power to 
 make things exceedingly unpleasant for 
 them ; and they knew, too, that he cer 
 tainly intended to use his power to the very 
 uttermost. Decidedly, the outlook was not a 
 cheerful one. As they left the studio, and 
 the wreck of their spirit-raising apparatus, 
 they all three were in a chastened and melan 
 choly frame of mind. 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 2 19 
 
 "THERE S been a dreadful rumpus, Row- 
 ney," Violet said, when, as they had agreed, 
 they met in the friendly shelter of Madame 
 d Antimoine s drawing-room the next after 
 noon. " That mean little Roberson has told 
 everybody everything, and and hot water s 
 no name for it ! Mr. and Mrs. d Antimoine 
 have had a regular squabble, though they ve 
 made things up now ; and Rose has been 
 crying till her lovely blue eyes are all swollen 
 and ugly ; and Van is in a perfect Apache 
 rage ; and Verona is dignifiedly disagreeable ; 
 and little Mrs. Gamboge got so excited and 
 indignant that her back-hair all went crooked 
 and nearly came off, and she had to go up 
 stairs and fix it ; and dear little Mr. Gamboge 
 looks solemnly at me, and I heard him say 
 as I came by the parlor-door : I am sure 
 that Mr. Orpiment would not have hesitated 
 to characterize such conduct as highly repre 
 hensible. And the wo-worst of all, Rowney," 
 and Violet s voice broke and her eyes had 
 tears in them, " is that cousin Mangan won t 
 get comfortably angry and have it out with 
 
22O COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 me, but is just miserable and mopes. All 
 that he said to me was : Mr. Roberson has 
 told me something that I have been very 
 sorry to hear, my child, and his voice didn t 
 sound right, and I know that he wanted to 
 cry. O Rowney, I m the most wretched 
 girl in the world ! " 
 
 Rowney was feeling pretty low in his mind 
 already, and this frank avowal of her misery 
 by Violet made him feel a great deal lower ; 
 and he was cut the more keenly because 
 neither by her words nor her manner did she 
 imply that he was the cause of it as he most 
 certainly was. 
 
 " I am very, very sorry," he said. 
 
 "Yes, I m sure you are, Rowney; and its 
 ever so good of you, you dear boy. You 
 see you see," and Violet blushed delight 
 fully, "what upsets them all so is your 
 your kissing me that way. Of course I know 
 that you didn t mean anything by it, and I m 
 sure I don t see why they make such a fuss 
 about it. Mamma has told me that several 
 of her gentlemen friends at Fort Leaven- 
 
XOBERSOWS MEDIUM. 221 
 
 worth used to kiss her whenever they got a 
 chance, and that she always used to box 
 their ears whenever they did it. Now, I 
 wonder," Violet continued, struck by a happy 
 thought, " I wonder if it s because I didn t 
 box your ears that they all object to it so ? 
 Because if it is, you know, I might do it yet. 
 Shall I ? " and she looked at him half in 
 quiringly, half with a most bewitching sauci- 
 ness. The comfort of telling her troubles to 
 so sympathetic a listener was having a very 
 reviving effect upon her. She certainly did 
 not look at all like the most wretched girl in 
 the world now. 
 
 Rowney moved a little closer to her, they 
 were sitting on the sofa, and took her hand 
 in his. Then, rather shakily, he spoke : 
 "Violet!" 
 
 She started. He never had called her 
 Violet before. But she did not take away 
 her hand. 
 
 " Violet!" Rowney s voice had not its 
 usual mocking tone, but was quite grave and 
 had a strange ring of tenderness in it. " My 
 
222 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 little girl, there s just one way for me to get 
 you out of the scrape that I ve got you into, 
 and that s to marry you. May I ? " 
 
 u O Rowney ! Do you mean to run away 
 with me ? " 
 
 " Well, I hadn t exactly contemplated 
 running away with you, I confess," said 
 Rowney, grinning a little in spite of him 
 self. 
 
 " Hadn t you, though ? " Violet answered, 
 with a touch of disappointment. " Why, 
 grandpapa ran away with grandmamma, and 
 they had a lovely time. Colonel Smalt, 
 that was grandmamma s father, you know, 
 started right out after them with dogs and a 
 shot-gun, and chased them for two whole 
 days. And at last they came to a river that 
 they had to swim their horses across, and 
 the Colonel, who was close behind them, 
 swam after them. And his horse was dead 
 beat, and couldn t swim ; and the Colonel 
 would have been drowned if grandpapa had 
 not come back and rescued him. And the 
 Colonel insisted upon fighting grandpapa 
 
ROBERSOWS MEDIUM. 22$ 
 
 right there in the water, and he did cut him 
 pretty badly ; and it was not until grand 
 papa held him under water until he was 
 nearly drowned that the Colonel gave in. 
 And then grandpapa carried him safely 
 ashore ; and after that, of course, they were 
 the best of friends. Wasn t it all delight- 
 ful ? I ve heard mamma say again and 
 again, how much she was disappointed, 
 because papa did not run away with her. 
 So, don t you think, don t you really think, 
 Rowney, that you d better run away with 
 me, dear ?" 
 
 "And have Mr. Mangan Brown, and 
 Van, and Mr. Gamboge galloping after us, 
 and swimming the Hudson, and peppering 
 us with shot-guns ? " 
 
 " Yes ! yes ! Oh, do do it, Rowney. It 
 would be such splendid fun, and would be 
 so very romantic ! " 
 
 "All right. If you really want to run 
 away, I d just as lief have things arranged 
 that way as any other, and it certainly will 
 save a lot of trouble. But don t count too 
 
224 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 much on the shot-guns, for I don t think it 
 probable that Mr. Mangan Brown and Mr. 
 Gamboge will come out strong in that direc 
 tion ; it isn t exactly their line. And now 
 let me have a kiss ; just one, to make it a 
 bargain, you know." 
 
 And Madame d Antimoine coming in at 
 this moment assumed an air of stately be 
 nevolence, and said: " Ah, my children, is 
 it thus ? Let me then give to you the bless 
 ing, as is done by the good mamma in the 
 play ! " 
 
 MR. MANGAN BROWN did not adopt the 
 shot-gun policy. Indeed, this policy was 
 rendered quite impracticable by the fact 
 that Rowney and Violet, immediately upon 
 accomplishing their marriage, did their run 
 ning away on board of Rowney s yacht a 
 mode of departure that Violet approved of 
 rapturously, because, as she said with much 
 truth, " it was so like eloping with a real 
 pirate. " But Mr. Mangan felt pretty dis 
 mal over it, and wrote a very apologetic 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 22 5 
 
 account of his stewardship to Sefior Car 
 mine. He tried to make the best of things, 
 of course, pointing out that in the matters of 
 family and fortune Rowney really was quite 
 a desirable son-in-law ; but even after he 
 had made the best of it, he could not help 
 admitting to himself that the situation was 
 one that a prudent parent scarcely could be 
 expected very heartily to enjoy. And he 
 was most agreeably surprised, therefore, a 
 month or so later, when Sefior Carmine s 
 letter escaped from the Mexican Post-Office, 
 and came to him laden with olive-branches, 
 instead of with the thunderbolts which he 
 had feared. 
 
 Violet s father was not angry ; on the con 
 trary, he seemed to be highly pleased with 
 the " excellent match " that his daughter had 
 made, and expressed his unqualified ap 
 proval of the " spirited way" in which she 
 had made it. " She has done honor to her 
 self, to her mother, and to the education 
 that she has received," Sefior Carmine de 
 clared, " and we are very grateful to you for 
 
226 COLOR STUDIES. 
 
 giving her the opportunity that she has so 
 well improved." The letter concluded with 
 a most urgent invitation for Mr. Mangan to 
 come down for six months or a year, and 
 to bring with him Mr. and Mrs. Gamboge, 
 Van and Rose, Verona and young Orpiment, 
 and Monsieur and Madame d Antimoine, 
 with all of whom, this hospitable Mexican 
 gentleman wrote, he had made a very pleas 
 ant acquaintance in his daughter s letters. 
 And enclosed in this communication was 
 a note, signed, Brigida O Jara de Carmine, 
 of which the theme was a breezy laudation 
 of the love that defies conventionalities, and 
 laughs at locksmiths, and is the true parent 
 of romance ! 
 
 "Well, since they take it this way," said 
 Mr. Mangan Brown with a great sigh of re 
 lief as he laid down the letters, " I must say 
 that I m glad she s gone. At my time of life 
 close association with such a such a very 
 volcanic young woman as Violet is, is rather 
 overwhelming. It s like being the Czar of 
 Russia and having the leading Nihilist right 
 
ROBERSON S MEDIUM. 22*J 
 
 in the house with you. And it is a great 
 comfort, just when I thought that everything 
 was ending shockingly, to find that every 
 thing has ended pleasantly. For except 
 that Violet has left that confounded parrot 
 behind her everything has ended pleasantly, 
 after all. 
 
 And only Roberson, among those who had 
 enjoyed the rather mixed pleasure of Miss 
 Carmine s acquaintance during her sojourn in 
 New York, dissented from the optimistic 
 view of the situation thus formulated by Mr. 
 Mangan Brown. In this matter Roberson 
 was not optimistic: he was a pessimist of 
 the deepest dye. When he came to know 
 what a boomerang his revenge had turned 
 out to be he forswore both love and spirit 
 ualism and settled down to art with the 
 stony calmness of despair. And it is a 
 notable fact though a fact not unparalleled 
 that the longer he painted the more abom 
 inably bad his still-lifes were ! 
 
BRIEF LIST OF BOOKS OF FICTION 
 PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNEKS SONS 
 
 George W. Cable. 
 
 THE GRANDISSIMES. New edition. i2mo, . . $1.25 
 OLD CREOLE DAYS. New edition. i2mo, . . .1.25 
 The same in two parts. i6mo. Cloth, each, 750.; paper, 
 
 each, 30 
 
 MADAME DELPHINE. i2mo, 75 
 
 Edward Eggleston. 
 
 ROXY. A Tale of Indiana Life. Illustrated. I2mo, 1.50 
 
 THE CIRCUIT RIDER. A Tale. Illustrated. i2mo, 1.50 
 
 THE HOOSIER SCHOOLMASTER. Illustrated. i2mo, 1.25 
 THE MYSTERY OF METROPOLISVILLE. Illustrated. 
 
 I2mo, i-5 
 
 THE END OF THE WORLD. A Love Story. Illustrated. 
 
 i2mo, 1.5 
 
 Complete Sets (in box), 7- 2 S 
 
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 SEVENOAKS. Small I2mo, .25 
 
 THE BAY PATH. Small i2mo, .... .25 
 
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 Miss GILBERT S CAREER. Small i2mo, . . .25 
 
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 Frances Hodgson Burnett. 
 
 THAT LASS o LOWRIE S. Illustrated. i2mo. Paper, 
 
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 HAWORTH S. Illustrated. i2mo, .... 1.50 
 
 LOUISIANA. i2mo, i.oo 
 
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 EARLIER STORIES. 
 
 LINDSAY S LUCK. i6mo. Paper 30 
 
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 KATHLEEN. i6mo. Paper, 40 
 
 THEO. i6mo. Paper, 30 
 
 Miss CRKSPIGNY. i6mo. Paper, 30 
 
SCRIJ3NEKS LIST OF BOOKS OF FICTION. 
 
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 One Woman Kept Her Husband," " Esther Wynn s 
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 SECOND SERIES. 
 
 "A Four-Leaved Clover," " Farmer Bassett s Romance," 
 " My Tourmaline," " Joe Hale s Red Stocking," "Su 
 san Lawton s Escape." I2mo. Paper, 5oc.; cloth, i.oo 
 
 H. H. Boyesen. 
 
 FALCONBERG. Illustrated. I2mo, .... 1.50 
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 QUEEN TITANIA. Square i2mo, .... i.oo 
 
 Edward Everett Hale. 
 PHILIP NOLAN S FRIENDS. Illustrated. i2mo, . 1.75 
 
 Augustus M. Swift. 
 
 CUPID, M.D. A Story. i6mo, . . . . i.oo 
 
LIST OF BOOKS OF FICTION. 
 
 The King s Men. 
 
 A Tale of To-morrow. By Robert Grant, John Boyle 
 O Reilly, J. S. of Dale, and John T.Wheelwright. I2mo, $1.25 
 
 Virginia W. Johnson. 
 THE FAINALLS OF TIPTON. i2mo, J - 2 5 
 
 Mrs. E. Prentiss. 
 
 FRED, MARIA, AND ME. With illustrations. i2mo. New 
 edition, 
 
 J. S. of Dale. 
 
 GUERNDALE. An Old Story. I2mo. Paper, 50 cents ; 
 
 cloth, _ I<2 5 
 
 THE CRIME OF HENRY VANE. By the author of 
 
 dale." I2mo, 
 
 Mary Adams. 
 AN HONORABLE SURRENDER. i6mo, . 
 
 Count Leo Tolstoy. 
 THE COSSACKS. i2mo, 
 
 Donald G. Mitchell. 
 DR, JOHNS. i2mo. New edition, . - J - 2 5 
 
 Julia Schayer. 
 
 TIGER LILY and Other Stories. I2mo, . . i- 
 
 Mary Mapes Dodge. 
 THEOPHILUS AND OTHERS. i2mo, i-5 
 
 A. Perry. 
 THE SCHOOLMASTER S TRIAL. i2mo, . i.oo 
 
 H. C. Bunner and Brander Matthews. 
 IN PARTNERSHIP. Studies in Story-Telling. i2mo, i.oo 
 
 Across the Chasm. 
 
 One vol. I2mo, 
 
SCRIJ3NE1TS LIST OF BOOKS OF FICTION. 
 
 Howard Pyle. 
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 E. T. W. Hoffmann. 
 WEIRD TALES. 2 vols. i2mo. With portrait, 3.00 
 
 Erckmann- Chatrian Series. 
 
 FRIEND FRITZ. i6mo, 1.25 
 
 THE CONSCRIPT. Illustrated. i6mo, . . . 1.25 
 
 WATERLOO. Illustrated. i2mo, .... 1.25 
 
 MADAME THERESE. Illustrated. i6mo, . . . 1.25 
 
 THE BLOCKADE OF PHALSBURG. Illustrated. i6mo, 1.25 
 
 THE INVASION OF FRANCE IN 1814. Illustrated. i6mo, 1.25 
 
 A MILLER S STORY OF THE WAR. i6mo, . . 1.25 
 
 Jules Verne. 
 
 GODFREY MORGAN. Illustrated. 8vo, .... 2.00 
 MICHAEL STROGOFF. Illustrated. New edition. 8vo, . 2.00 
 A FLOATING CITY, and THE BLOCKADE RUNNERS. 
 
 Illustrated. 8vo, 2.00 
 
 HECTOR SERVADAC. Illustrated. 8vo, .... 2.00 
 
 DICK SANDS. Illustrated. 8vo, 3- 
 
 A JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH. Illustra 
 ted. 8vo, 3- 
 
 THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND. Illustrated. 8vo, . . 3.00 
 
 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON DIRECT IN NINETY- 
 SEVEN HOURS, TWENTY MINUTES. Illustrated. 12010, 1.50 
 STORIES OF ADVENTURE. Comprising " Meridiana," and 
 
 "A Journey to the Centre of the Earth." Illus. I2mo, 1.50 
 THE DEMON OF CAWNPORE. (Part I of the Steam 
 
 House). Illustrated. I2mo, .1.50 
 
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 Illustrated. I2mo, l -S 
 
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 trated. 121110, . . . * 5 
 
SCRIJ3NER S LIST OF BOOKS OF FICTION. 
 
 Stories by American Authors. 
 
 A collection of the most noteworthy stories written in 
 recent years, not hitherto printed in book form, now pub 
 lished by arrangement with the authors. 
 
 I WHO WAS SHE ? Bayard Taylor. THE DOCUMENTS IN THE CASE, Bran- 
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 Henry Bishop. BALACCHI BROTHERS, Rebecca Harding Davis. AN 
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 PARTY, John Eddy. THE MOUNT OF SORROW, Harriet Prescott Spofford. 
 SISTER SILVIA, Mary Agnes Tinker. i6mo, 50 
 
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 Frances Hodgson Burnett. Two PURSE-COMPANIONS, George Parsons 
 Lathrop. POOR OGLA-MOGA, David D. Lloyd. A MEMORABLE MURDER, 
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 IV. Miss GRIEF, Constance Fenimore Woolson. LOVE IN OLD CLOATHES, 
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 CONCERN, Mary Hallock Foote. AN INSPIRED LOBBYIST, J. W. DeForest. 
 LOST IN THE FOG, Noah Brooks. i6mo 5 
 
 V. A LIGHT MAN, Henry James. YATIL, F. D. Millet. THE END OF NEW 
 YORK, Park Benjamin. WHY THOMAS WAS DISCHARGED, George 
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 Rowland F. Coffin. " MAS HAS COME," Leonard Kipp, . . . .50 
 
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 Mitchell. YOUNG MOLL S PEEVY, C. A. Stephens. MANMAT HA, Charles 
 de Kay. A DARING FICTION, H. H. Boyesen. THE STORY OF Two 
 LIVES, Julia Schayer, ..... 
 
 Complete Sets, 10 vols. in a box, $5.00. 
 
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