Читать книгу The Four-Masted Cat-Boat, and Other Truthful Tales онлайн

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His blank expression showed that I had made some mistake. He is a tall, portly man, and he seemed alarmed at the prospect of being picked up. A fall would be serious.

“I don’t quite get your meaning, but I suppose you refer to the men about town who stray in for a few minutes.”

It seemed a queer way to express it, but I replied: “Oh, yes; just to browse. You repay browsing, Mr. Cavendish.”

He smiled reminiscently. “Speaking of browsing, when I was told to go ahead on Richelieu, I browsed a long time in the British Museum getting up data.”

What, a painter, after all? I forgot all else he had said, and told him I thought he was as happy as Sargent or Whistler.

“Yes; I don’t let little things worry me much. Sometimes the paint gives out at a critical time in a small town.”

Good heaven! Why should the paint give out in a small town at a critical time? Was he a painter, after all? Could he be a traveling sign-painter?

“Does it bother you to work up in the air?”

“That’s an original way of putting it,” said he, with a genial laugh. “To play to the grand stand, as it were. Oh, no; a man must do more or less of that to succeed.”