g from his knees.

"Punk."

Peter Quick Banta applied the higher criticism to the urchin's nearest
ear. It was now that connoisseur's turn to be affronted. Picking himself
out of the gutter, he placed his thumb to his nose, and wiggled his
finger in active and reprehensible symbolism, whilst enlarging upon his
original critique, in a series of shrill roars:

"Rotten! Punk! No good! Swash! Flubdub! Sacre tas de--de--piffle!"
Already his vocabulary was rich and plenteous, though, in those days,
tainted by his French origin.

He then, I regret to say, spat upon the purple whiskers of the butterfly
and took refuge in flight. The long stride of Peter Quick Banta soon
overtook him. Silently struggling he was haled back to the profaned
temple of Art.

"Now, young feller," said Peter Quick Banta. "Maybe you think you could
do it better." The world-old retort of the creative artist to
his critic!

"Any fool could," retorted the boy, which, in various forms, is almost
as time-honored as the challenge.

Suspecting that only tactful intervention would forestall possible
murder, I sauntered over from my bench. But the decorator of sidewalks
had himself under control.

"Try it," he said grimly.

The boy avidly seized the crayons extended to him.

"You want me to draw a picture? There?"

"If you don't, I'll break every bone in your body."

The threat left its object quite unmoved. He pointed a crayon at Peter
Quick Banta's creation.

"What is that? A bool-rush?"

"It's a laylock; that's what it is."

"And the little bird that goes to light--"

"That ain't a bird and you know it." Peter Quick Banta breathed hard.
"That's a butterfly."

"I see. But the lie-lawc, it drop--so!" The gesture was inimitable. "And
the butterfly, she do not come down, plop! She float--so!" The grimy
hands fluttered and sank.

"They do, do they? Well, you put it down on the sidewalk."

From that moment the outside world ceased to exist for the urchin. He
fell to with concentrated fervor, while Peter Quick Banta and I diverted
the traffic. Only once did he speak:

"Yellow," he said, reaching, but not looking up.

Silently the elder artist put the desired crayon in his hand. When the
last touches were done, the boy looked up at us, not boastfully, but
with supreme confidence.

"There!" said he.

It was crude. It was ill-proportioned. The colors were raw. The
arrangements were false.

_But_--the lilac bloomed. _And_--the butterfly