"Oh, admirable!" cried Claude. "A most suggestive humouresque!"
"It'll do," said Stubbs, the oracle. "It mightn't appeal to the suburbs, damn them, but it does to us."
"Grant the convention, and the art is perfect," continued Claude, with the tail of his eye on Jack.
"It is the caricature that is more like than life," pursued Stubbs, with a sidelong glance in the same direction.
Jack saw these looks; but from his corner he could not see the sketch, nor had he any suspicion of its subject. All else that he noted was the flush of triumph, or it may have been whisky, or just possibly both, on the pale, fringed face of Impressionism. He held out his hand for the half-sheet of paper on which the sketch had been made.
"I hope it won't offend you," exclaimed the artist, hesitating.
"Offend me! Why should it? Let's have a look!"
And he looked for more than a minute at the five curves and a beard which had expressed to quicker eyes the quintessence of his own outward and visible personality. At first he could make nothing of them; even when an interpretation dawned upon him, his face was puzzled as he raised it to the trio hanging on his words.
"It won't do, mister," said the Duke reluctantly. "You'll never get saplings like them," tapping the five curves with his forefinger, "to hold a nest like that," putting his thumb on the beard, "and don't you believe it."
There was a moment's silence. Then the Impressionist said thickly: