You see, Mr. O'Day, now that the art of the
country has gone to the devil and nobody wants my masterpieces, I have
become an Eastern painter, fresh from Cairo, where I have lived for half
a century--principally on Turkish paste and pressed figs. My specialty
at present--they are all over my walls, as you can see--is dancing-girls
in silk tights or without them, just as the tobacco shops prefer. I
also do sheiks, muffled to their eyebrows in bath towels, and with
scimitars--like that one above the mantel. And very profitable, too;
MOST profitable, my dear sir. I get twenty doldars for a real odalisk
and fifteen for a bashi-bazouk. I can do one about every other day, and
I sell one about every other month. As for Sam Dogger here--Sam, what is
your specialty? I said landscapes, Sam, when Mr. O'Day came in, but you
may have changed since we have been talking."

The wizened old gentleman thus addressed sidled nearer. He was ten years
younger than Ganger, but his thin, bloodless hands, watery eyes, their
lids edged with red, and bald head covered by a black velvet skull-cap
made him look that much older.

"Nat talks too much, Mr. O'Day," he piped in a high-keyed voice. "I
often tell Nat that he's got a loose hinge in his mouth, and he ought to
screw it tight or it will choke him some day when he isn't watching. He!
He!" And a wheezy laugh filled the room.

"Shut up, you old sardine! You don't talk enough. If you did you'd
get along better. I'll tell you, Mr. O'Day, what Sam does. Sam's a
patcher-up--a 'puttier.' That's what he is. Sam can get more quality out
of a piece of sandpaper, a pot of varnish, and a little glue than any
man in the business. If you don't believe it, just bring in a fake
Romney, or a Gainsborough, or some old Spanish or Italian daub with the
corners knocked off where the signature once was, or a scrape down half
a cheek, or some smear of a head, with half the canvas bare, and put Sam
to work on it, and in a week or less out it comes just as it left the
master's easel--'Found by his widow after his death' or 'The property
of an English nobleman on whose walls it has hung for two centuries.'
By thunder! isn't it beautiful?" He chuckled. "Wonderful how these
bullfrogs of connoisseurs swallow the dealers' flies! And here am I,
who can paint any blamed thing from a hen-coop to a battle scene,
doing signs for tobacco shops; and there is Sam, who can do Corots and
Rousseaus and Daubignys by the yard, oblige