“God bless me, no! You must not do that. It will be time enough to send a check after you receive the little pictures.”
Needless to say, the pictures were never received. They had just been finished, and he could not bring himself to part with them. It was not a matter of money at all,—likely as not he sold them later for less,—but it was always next to impossible to get him to part with recent work. If he happened to have on hand a picture five or ten years old, possibly that could be bought and taken away, but anything in which he was interested at the time he would not let go.
In 1894 he exhibited three small marines, which he had painted off-shore while the boatman steadied
his boat. They were fresh and crisp,—so good that a great painter of marines said of them in the exhibition, “They over-topped everything about them.”
Two were sold, and he showed the third to an American who came to the studio. The caller said at once he would be only too glad to take it at the price named; the matter was apparently closed, and the buyer sailed for home, leaving a friend to get the picture.
A day or two after, Whistler stood looking long and earnestly at the little marine, saying half to himself:
“It is good, isn’t it?”
Then he took the canvas out of the frame, and said: