As I was saying, Percy did real well until he started drawing covers for the high school paper. After these had been accepted he swelled up like a pouter pigeon and nothing would do but he must go abroad to study. His father kicked like a steer; but in the end Percy and his mother prevailed, and Lynn lost sight of him for a few years.
For a time, I used to ask the old man how Percy was getting along with his painting, but as he always changed the subject to the leather market, I soon quit. One day after Percy had been gone about three years, I came home early and found your Ma holding a tea fight in the parlor.
After balancing a cup on my knees without spilling more than half of its contents, and getting myself so smeared with the frosting of the cake I was supposed to eat that I'd have given ten dollars for a shower bath, the conversation lulled, and remembering your Ma had told me I never talked enough in society, I asked Mrs. Benson how Percy was doing.
Ted it tickled her most to pieces, and she opened up a barrage of technique, color, fore-shortening, and high lights, winding up with the astonishing fact that one of Percy's pictures had been hung in a saloon.
I was gasping for breath like a marathon runner at the end of the twenty-third mile, but your Ma was all smiles so I thought I must be making a hit.
That's where I went wrong, and while you're about it Ted just paste this in your hat for future reference. When you begin to be pleased with yourself you're in as much danger as a fat boy running tiddelies on early November ice.
As saloon was the only word in the Benson cannonade that I understood, I replied when the bombardment was over.
"Glad to hear it, I'm sure. If the French brewers are paying him for pictures to hang in their saloons, he should be able to paint some snappy clothing ads for American manufacturers before long."
Mrs. Benson choked, gasped, strangled, and grew so red in the face I thought she was going to have apoplexy. Then she bounded out of her chair with one word, "insulting," and made for the door with your Ma one jump behind, imploring her to stay.
When your Ma returned, I learned saloon was the French word for picture gallery, and that my society stock had gone down like an aviator in a nose dive.