ting from the tops of
his boots.

"Shake! Mighty good of you fellows to come all the way down to see me.
Here, you stone-cutter--help me off with these boots. Marie's getting
luncheon. Don't touch that canvas--all this morning's work--got to work
early." (It looked to be a finished picture to me.)

He was flat on the grass now, his legs in the air like an acrobat about
to balance a globe, the water pouring from his wading boots, soaking the
rest of him, all three of us tugging away--I at his head, the Sculptor
at his feet. How Marie ever helped him squirm out of this diving-suit
was more than I could tell.

We had started for the mill now, the Man from the Quarter lugging the
boots, still hoping there might be some truth in the trout story, the
Sculptor with the palette (big as a tea-tray), Knight with the ladder,
and I with the wet canvas.

Again the cry rang out: "Marie! _Marie!_" and again the old woman
started on a run--for the kitchen this time (she had been listening
for this halloo--he generally came in wringing wet)--reappearing as we
reached the hall door, her apron full of clothes swept from a drying
line stretched before the big, all-embracing fireplace. These she
carried ahead of us upstairs and deposited on the small iron bedstead
in the painter's own room, Knight close behind, his wet socks making
Man-Friday footprints in the middle of each well-scrubbed step. Once
there, Knight dodged into a closet, wriggled himself loose, and was out
again with half of Marie's apronful covering his chest and legs.

It was easy to see where the power of his brush lay. No timid,
uncertain, niggling stroke ever came from that torso or forearm or
thigh. He hewed with a broad axe, not with a chisel, and he hewed
true--that was the joy of it. The men of Meissonier's time, like the old
Dutchmen, worked from their knuckle joints. These new painters, in their
new technique--new to some--old really, as that of Velasquez and Frans
Hals--swing their brushes from their spinal columns down their forearms
(Knight's biceps measure seventeen inches) and out through their
finger-tips, with something of the rhythm and force of an old-time
blacksmith welding a tire. Broad chests, big boilers, strong arms,
straight legs, and stiff backbones have much to do with success in
life--more than we give them credit for. Instead of measuring men's
heads, it would be just as well, once in a while, to slip the tape
around their chests and waists.