last he done."

"Dead!" Cobden exclaimed, aghast.

"Dead?" the skipper marveled. "Sure, no. He've gone an' growed up." He
was then bewildered by Cobden's relief.

Cobden faced the skipper squarely. He surveyed the genial fellow with
curious interest.

"Skipper Tom," said he, then, slowly, "you have a wonderful son." He
paused. "A--wonderful--son," he repeated. He smiled; the inscrutable
wonder of the thing had all at once gently amused him--the wonder that
a genius of rarely exampled quality should have entered the world in
the neighborhood of Out-of-the-Way Tickle, there abandoned to chance
discovery of the most precarious sort. And there was no doubt about
the quality of the genius. The picture proclaimed it; and the picture
was not promise, but a finished work, in itself an achievement, most
marvelously accomplished, moreover, without the aid of any tradition.

Terry Lute's art was triumphant. Even the skeptical Cobden, who had
damned so much in his day, could not question the lad's mastery. It
did not occur to him to question it.

Skipper Tom blinked at the painter's wistful gravity. "What's the
row?" he stammered.

Cobden laughed heartily.

"It is hard to speak in a measured way of all this," he went on, all
at once grave again. "After all, perhaps, one guesses; and even the
most cautious guesses go awry. I must not say too much. It is not the
time, at any rate, to say much. Afterward, when I have spoken with
this--this young master, then, perhaps. But I may surely say that the
fame of Terry Lute will soon be very great." His voice rose; he spoke
with intense emphasis. "It will continue, it will grow. Terry Lute's
name will live"--he hesitated--"for generations." He paused now, still
looking into the skipper's inquiring eyes, his own smiling wistfully.
Dreams were already forming. "Skipper Tom," he added, turning away,
"you have a wonderful son."

"Ay," said the skipper, brows drawn; "an' I knows it well enough." He
added absently, with deep feeling, "He've been--_jus' fair
wonderful_."

"He shall learn what I can teach him."

"In the way o' sketchin' off, sir?" There was quick alarm in this.

Cobden struck a little attitude. It seemed to him now to be a moment.
He was profoundly moved. "Terry Lute," he replied, "shall be--a
master!"

"Mr. Cobden, sir," Skipper Tom protested, his face in an anxious
twist, "I'll thank you t' leave un alone."

"I'll make a man of him!" cried Cobden, grieved.

Sk