bination' is
complete--and that the 'plain man' is, as usual, 'out of it.'--I
am, Sir, etc.,

"J. MCNEILL WHISTLER."

The question of fair dealing and good manners in this matter I could
not leave in better hands than your own, and I will only add that
hitherto I have always met with the utmost readiness on the part of
the press to receive into their columns any reply, however opposed to
assertions of their own.

Surely it is but poor policy this peremptory attempt to maintain in
authority the weak and blundering one, that he may destroy himself
and bring sorrow upon his people.

Rather let him be thrust from his post, that he may be "brayed in a
mortar among wheat with a pestle"--that the Just be assuaged and
foolishness depart from among us.

[Illustration]

_An Interview with an ex-President_

[Sidenote: _Pall Mall Gazette_, June 11, 1888.]

The adverse vote by which the Royal Society of British Artists
transferred its oath of allegiance from Mr. Whistler is for the time
the chief topic of conversation in artistic circles.... We instructed
our representative to visit Mr. Whistler to obtain his explanation of
the affair.

"The state of affairs?" said Mr. Whistler, in his light and airy way,
raising his eyebrows and twinkling his eyes, as if it were all the
best possible fun in the world; "why, my dear sir, there's positively
_no_ state of affairs at all. Contrary to public declaration, there's
actually nothing chaotic in the whole business; on the contrary,
everything is in order, and just as it should be. The survival of the
fittest as regards the presidency, don't you see, and, well--Suffolk
Street is itself again! A new government has come in, and, as I told
the members the other night, I congratulate the Society on the result
of their vote, for no longer can it be said that the right man is
in the wrong place. No doubt their pristine sense of undisturbed
somnolence will again settle upon them after the exasperated mental
condition arising from the unnatural strain recently put upon the old
ship. Eh? what? Ha! ha!"

"You do not then consider the Society as out of date? You do not
think, as is sometimes said, that the establishment of the Grosvenor
took away the _raison d'etre_ and original intention of the
Society--that of being a foil to the Royal Academy?"

"I can hardly say what was originally intended, but I do know that it