"'Tis well to brag," muttered Pythagoras, "but you'll starve with cold this night."
"But at dawn I'll eat a hearty breakfast offered me by my friend Frans Hals for the privilege of painting my portrait."
"Doth he really paint thy portrait, O handsome Diogenes?" said Pythagoras unctuously.
"Aye! thou ugly old toad. He has begun a new one, for which I have promised to sit. I'll pay for the breakfast he gives me, by donning a gorgeous gold embroidered doublet which he once stole from somewhere, by putting my hand on my hip, tilting my hat at a becoming angle, and winking at him by the hour whilst he paints away."
"Hm! after a night of wandering by the canal in the fog and snow and sharing the meagre breakfast of a half-starved painter, methinks the portrait will be that of a knight of the rueful countenance."
"Indeed not, old compeer," said Diogenes with a hearty laugh, "it shall be the portrait of a Laughing Cavalier."
CHAPTER IX
THE PAINTER OF PICTURES
After this episode Chance had little to do with the further events of this veracious chronicle.