where I was"

"Why, what was the matter?"

"The flies kept buzzing and biting, and sticking in the work. That's the
worst of out o' doors!"

"The flies! is that all? Swear the spiders in special constables next
time," cried Gatty. "We shall win the day;" and light shone into his
hazel eye.

"The world will not always put up with the humbugs of the brush, who,
to imitate Nature, turn their back on her. Paint an out o' door scene
indoors! I swear by the sun it's a lie! the one stupid, impudent lie
that glitters among the lies of vulgar art, like Satan among Belial,
Mammon and all those beggars.

"Now look here; the barren outlines of a scene must be looked at, to be
done; hence the sketching system slop-sellers of the Academy! but the
million delicacies of light, shade, and color can be trusted to memory,
can they?

"It's a lie big enough to shake the earth out of her course; if any part
of the work could be trusted to memory or imagination, it happens to be
the bare outlines, and they can't. The million subtleties of light and
color; learn them by heart, and say them off on canvas! the highest
angel in the sky must have his eye upon them, and look devilish sharp,
too, or he shan't paint them. I give him Charles Gatty's word for that."

"That's very eloquent, I call it," said Jones.

"Yes," said poor old Groove, "the lad will never make a painter."

"Yes, I shall, Groove; at least I hope so, but it must be a long time
first."

"I never knew a painter who could talk and paint both," explained Mr.
Groove.

"Very well," said Gatty. "Then I'll say but one word more, and it is
this. The artifice of painting is old enough to die; it is time the art
was born. Whenever it does come into the world, you will see no more
dead corpses of trees, grass and water, robbed of their life, the
sunlight, and flung upon canvas in a studio, by the light of a cigar,
and a lie--and--"

"How much do you expect for your picture?" interrupted Jones.

"What has that to do with it? With these little swords" (waving his
brush), "we'll fight for nature-light, truth light, and sunlight against
a world in arms--no, worse, in swaddling clothes."

"With these little swerrds," replied poor old Groove, "we shall cut our
own throats if we go against people's prejudices."

The young artist laughed the old daubster a merry defiance, and then
separated from the party, for his lodgings were down the street.

He had not left them long, before