"Don't you do anything of the kind, Mac; you don't want any drops of red sealing wax spilt on that middle distance, or any blobs of white; only make it worse. All you need is a touch here and there of yellow-white against that purple haze. But you don't want to guess at it. This East River is a fact, not a dream. And it's right here under our eyes. Everybody knows it and everybody knows how it looks. If you want it true, the best thing for you to do is to go there to-morrow morning at daylight and wait until the sun gets to your angle. You fellows that insist on painting things out of your heads instead of following what is set down before you will run to seed like cabbages. Why you want to scoop up the emptyings of everybody's wash-basins, when it is so easy to get buckets of pure water fresh from nature's well, is what gets me."
"Talks like an art critic," growled Pitkin.
"And with as little sense," added Woods.
"More like a plumber, I should think," remarked Lonnegan drily. "Only don't you go up on that hill at five o'clock in the morning, Mac, or you'll never finish that picture or anything else. Some thug will finish you. That's the worst hole on the river—regular den of thieves live under that hill. I came near being murdered there myself once."
Lonnegan's statement caused a sensation.
"You came near being murdered, you dear Lonny?" Mac asked nervously.
"Yes."
"When?"
"Some three years ago."
Boggs, who was still smarting under the contempt with which his suggestion had been received, now shouted in the voice of a newsboy selling an afternoon edition: