The Wrecker

elf: a man of a good stature, a very lively face, cordia

a word with

t know what it can be about, but y

e of an offence. To speak to herself would be only to renew her embarrassment, and I seize the occasion of making my apology,

e than justice. I was introduced to her the other night at tea, in the apartment of some people, friends of mine; a

but that it was I who had sought the acquaintance, might have been tempte

n Dodd; I am a student of sc

en his last conjecture. “Mine is James Pinkerton; I am

turn to exclaim. “Are you

t; and indeed any young man in the quarter might have

nts proceeding to an unpardonable freedom, plucked out his knife and suddenly plunged it in the belly of the jester. This gentleman, I am pleased to say, passed months upon a bed of sickness, before he was in a position to resume his studies. The second incident was that which had earned Pinkerton his reputation. In a crowded studio, while some very filthy brutalities were being practised on a trembling debutant, a tall, pale fellow sprang from his stool and (without the smallest preface or explanation) sang out, “All English and Americans to clear the shop!” Our race is brutal, but not filthy; and the summons was nobly responded to. Every Anglo-Saxon student seized his stool; in a moment the studio was full of bloody coxcombs, the French fleeing in disorder for the door, the

p practitioners of art in Paris; but many of those who were still in a state of pupilage were sorry specimens, so much so that I used often to wonder where the painters came from, and where the brutes of students went to. A similar mystery hangs over the intermediate stages of the medical profession, and must have perplexed the least observant. The ruffian, at least, whom I now carried Pinkerton to visit, was one of the most crapulous in the quarter. He turned out for our delectation a huge “crust” (as we used to call it) of St. Stephen, wallowing in red upon his belly i

r down stairs?” asked Pink

s. I suppose that’s what gave him the idea for his picture. He has just b

“I can’t speak this language, though I understand a little; I neve

cried. “They don’t understand that sort of

e objected. “Let me tell him what he loo

d I, thrusting Pinkerto

l a?”[1] inquir

the matter

garde votre croute,”[2] said I, and made my es

t his stomach from having lo

u say to him

that he could fe

uncheon. I have forgot the name of the place to which I led him, nothing loath; it was on the far side of the Luxembourg at least, with a garden behind, where we were

patriarchs.” On the death of this random protector, the boy inherited the plant and continued the business. “It was a life I could have chosen, Mr. Dodd!” he cried. “I have been in all the finest scenes of that magnificent continent that we were born to be the heirs of. I wish you could see my collection of tin-types; I wish I had them here. They were taken for my own pleasure and to be a memento; and they show Nature in her grandest as well as her gentlest moments.” As he tramped the Western States and Territories, taking tin-types, the boy was continually getting hold of books, good, bad, and indifferent, popular and abstruse, from the novels of Sylvanus Cobb to Euclid’s Elements, both of which I found (to my almost equal wonder) he had managed to peruse: he was taking stock by the way

d the practice inside of a year,” he said. “And there’s interest in it, too. It’s amusing to pick out some one going by, make up your mind about his character and tastes, dash out of the office and hit him flying with an offer of the very place he wants to go to. I don’t think there was a scalper on the continent made fewer blunders. But I took it only as a stage. I was saving every dollar; I was looking ahead. I knew what I wanted — wealth, education, a refined home, and a conscientious, cultured lady for a

te?” I asked him,

in the works of God. But it wasn’t that. I just said to myself, What is most wanted in my age and country?

e glowed in him; and even if his artistic vocation seemed (to one of my exclusive tenets) not quite clear, who could predict what might be accomplished by a creature so full-blooded and so inspi

flatter a man without a blush; but upon that, upon all that touches art, my sincerity is Roman. Once and twice I made the circuit of his walls in silence, spying in every corner for some spark of merit; he, meanwhile, following close at my heels, reading the verdict in my face with fur

e long silence, “it’s quite

nk with you? I think you

hope, and turning upon me the embarrassing brightness of his eye. “No

ination; which, when I had done, I could but shake my head. “I am tr

ill help me to extend my relations when I get back home; it may fit me for a position on one of the illustrateds; and then I can always turn dealer,” he said, uttering the monstrous proposition, which was enough to shake the Latin Quarter to the dust, with entire simplicity. “It’s all experience

interrupted. “I have seen your

t’s go see it at once! But I know y

nd he amazed me, on the way, with his light-hearted talk and new projects. So that I began at last to understand how matters lay: that this was not an artist who had been deprived of

ncerity, cement our friendship, and (at one and the same blow) restore my estimation of his talents. Several times already, when I had been speaking of myself, he had pulled out a writing-pad

it?” I could not help asking, as

aid he. “Never you mind.

her, with something of an Indian type; the babe upon her knees was winged, to indicate our soaring future; and her seat was a

he inquired, as soon as I had explaine

don’t think it’s entirely bad myself. Here is the best point; it builds up best from h

nkerton. “There’s the word I lo

uired. “It’s the most commonplace

unconsciousness of genius. Lord, but this is

l close the place of entertainment.” And I th

hurry. Give me a point or two. S

found that out for

miring it, as everybody must who has a soul. So do just be a good fellow, and explain to me what yo

with a certain uncultivated shrewdness, and continued to scratch down notes, and tear fresh sheets from his pad. I found it inspiring to have my words thus taken down like a professor’s lecture; and having had no previous experience of the press, I was unaware that they were all being taken down wrong. For the same reason (incredible as it must appear in an American) I never enterta

t equal proportions. I must not say he had a fault, not only because my mouth is sealed by gratitude, but because those he had sprang merely from his education,

aked out) wrote letters for a paper in the West, and had filled a part of one of them with descri

aimed. “I thought you didn’t seem to catc

, you were bound to

, I thought it wouldn’t matter. I wanted it (if possible) to come on you as a surprise; I wanted you just to waken, like Lord By

! how do you know I thi

see that. I would rather have cut off my hand. I would stop it now, only it’s

daresay it’s all right,” said I. “I know you meant it

rviewed the editor, put it to him straight; the freshness of the idea took him, and I walked out of that office with the contract in my pocket, and

of a newspaper marked in the corner, “Compliments of J.P.” I opened it with sensible shrinkings; and there, wedged between an account of a prize- fight and a skittish article upon chiropody — think of chiropody treat

ER OF PINKERTON

ART PRACTITI

MUSKEGON'S CO

SON OF MILL

PATRIO

"HE MEANS T

ould be your idea of a distinctively American quality in sculpture?’” It was true the question had been asked; it was true, alas! that I had answered; and now here was my reply, or some strange hash of it, gibbeted in the co

d his manuscript. “My dearest boy,” it began, “I send you a cutting which has pleased me very much, from a St. Joseph paper of high standing. At last you seem to be coming fairly to the front; and I cannot but reflect with delight and gratitude how very few youths of your age occupy nearly two columns of press-matter all to themselves. I only wish your dear m

und a pleasure as this article in the Sunday Herald. What a fool, then, was I, to be lamenting! when I had at last, and for once, and at the cost of only a few blushes, paid back a fraction of my debt of gratitude. So that, when I next met Pinkerton, I took things very lightly; my father wa

udon. It’s the want of tact, and it’s incurable.” He sat down, and leaned his

ve my wretched person out, and my still more wretched conversation; and above all,” I added, with an irrepressible shudder

I did. Think what it would have been to me when I was tramping around with my tin-types to find a column and a half of real, cultured conversation — an artist, in his studio abroad, talking of his art — and to know how he looked as he did it, and what

admitted, “the sufferers shouldn’t compl

IF is no mere figure of speech, but stands for honest doubt — no series of benefits conferred, or even dangers shared, would have so rapidl