ey're old brushes, by the Lord Harry! The Town Council pays you well,
Mr. Artist; why don't you work for them with new brushes? What? you work
best with old? I contend, sir, that you can't. Does my housemaid clean
best with an old broom? Do my clerks write best with old pens? Don't
color up, and don't look as if you were going to quarrel with me! You
can't quarrel with me. If you were fifty times as irritable a man as
you look, you couldn't quarrel with me. I'm not young, and I'm not
touchy--I'm Boxsious, the lawyer; the only man in the world who can't be
insulted, try it how you like!"

He chuckled as he said this, and walked away to the window. It was quite
useless to take anything he said seriously, so I finished preparing
my palette for the morning's work with the utmost serenity of look and
manner that I could possibly assume.

"There!" he went on, looking out of the window; "do you see that fat
man slouching along the Parade, with a snuffy nose? That's my favorite
enemy, Dunball. He tried to quarrel with me ten years ago, and he has
done nothing but bring out the hidden benevolence of my character ever
since. Look at him! look how he frowns as he turns this way. And now
look at me! I can smile and nod to him. I make a point of always smiling
and nodding to him--it keeps my hand in for other enemies. Good-morning!
(I've cast him twice in heavy damages) good-morning, Mr. Dunball.
He bears malice, you see; he won't speak; he's short in the neck,
passionate, and four times as fat as he ought to be; he has fought
against my amiability for ten mortal years; when he can't fight any
longer, he'll die suddenly, and I shall be the innocent cause of it."

Mr. Boxsious uttered this fatal prophecy with extraordinary complacency,
nodding and smiling out of the window all the time at the unfortunate
man who had rashly tried to provoke him. When his favorite enemy was out
of sight, he turned away, and indulged himself in a brisk turn or two up
and down the room. Meanwhile I lifted my canvas on the easel, and was on
the point of asking him to sit down, when he assailed me again.

"Now, Mr. Artist," he cried, quickening his walk impatiently, "in the
interests of the Town Council, your employers, allow me to ask you for
the last time when you are going to begin?"

"And allow me, Mr. Boxsious, in the interest of the Town Council also,"
said I, "to ask you if your notion of the proper way of sitting for your
portrait is to walk ab