boatman."

"Does the young fellow belong to you?" asked Porbus of the old man.

"Alas, maitre, forgive my boldness," said the neophyte, blushing. "I am
all unknown; only a dauber by instinct. I have just come to Paris, that
fountain of art and science."

"Let us see what you can do," said Porbus, giving him a red crayon and a
piece of paper.

The unknown copied the saint with an easy turn of his hand.

"Oh! oh!" exclaimed the old man, "what is your name?"

The youth signed the drawing: Nicolas Poussin.

"Not bad for a beginner," said the strange being who had discoursed so
wildly. "I see that it is worth while to talk art before you. I don't
blame you for admiring Porbus's saint. It is a masterpiece for the world
at large; only those who are behind the veil of the holy of holies can
perceive its errors. But you are worthy of a lesson, and capable of
understanding it. I will show you how little is needed to turn that
picture into a true masterpiece. Give all your eyes and all your
attention; such a chance of instruction may never fall in your way
again. Your palette, Porbus."

Porbus fetched his palette and brushes. The little old man turned up
his cuffs with convulsive haste, slipped his thumb through the palette
charged with prismatic colors, and snatched, rather than took, the
handful of brushes which Porbus held out to him. As he did so his beard,
cut to a point, seemed to quiver with the eagerness of an incontinent
fancy; and while he filled his brush he muttered between his teeth:--

"Colors fit to fling out of the window with the man who ground
them,--crude, false, revolting! who can paint with them?"

Then he dipped the point of his brush with feverish haste into the
various tints, running through the whole scale with more rapidity
than the organist of a cathedral runs up the gamut of the "O Filii" at
Easter.

Porbus and Poussin stood motionless on either side of the easel, plunged
in passionate contemplation.

"See, young man," said the old man without turning round, "see how with
three or four touches and a faint bluish glaze you can make the air
circulate round the head of the poor saint, who was suffocating in that
thick atmosphere. Look how the drapery now floats, and you see that the
breeze lifts it; just now it looked like heavy linen held out by pins.
Observe that the satiny lustre I am putting on the bosom gives it the
plump suppleness of the flesh of a young girl. See how this tone of
min