From Baldwin's studio—Baldwin was sketching in from the model a kneeling Filipino prisoner with head thrown back and hands bound behind him—Ewing descended to Chalmers's place to find its owner finishing, with many swift pen strokes, the filmy gown of a débutante who underwent with downcast eyes the appraisal of an elderly beau. This absorbed and serious Chalmers was so unlike the frivolous night bird who reviled his art editor that Ewing forbore to distract him.
Griggs, in the studio back of Chalmers, was soberly work-bent over the wash-drawing of a sword fight, an illustration for what he confided to Ewing was the latest "high boots and hardware novel."
"One lovely thing," explained the artist, "they all take the same pictures—the plighted troth in the château garden; the lone hero spitting eight low-browed mercenaries of the scoundrelly duke at the end of the blind passage; 'nother fight on the main stairway of the palace, girl in view back of the hero, who's still acting the village cut-up with his little rapier; and the last picture, reward of hero in front parlor of the château, my Lord the Cardinal standing by to bless the happy pair, and the wicked Duke Bazazas being dragged out by loyal serving men to be finished off in the woodshed. The caption for that one always is, 'At Last, My Darling!' I just glance along the proofs until I light on those scenes. It saves a lot of reading, and I think of getting a set of rubber stamps to do the pictures with."
"You seem to be all black-and-white men here," remarked Ewing. "Aren't any of you painters? I've thought I'd like to work in color—to learn the trick of it."
Griggs glanced up at him, then smiled largely.
"The trick of color, eh? Sure! There's a boy upstairs next door to you—old Pop Sydenham. I'll take you up now, but don't let him hear you call it 'the trick of color.' Pop has been at that trick for over a century now—I believe he's a hundred and nineteen years old to-morrow. He's got a darned refined sense of color, too. I guess he's seen every color in the world, except some of those he puts on his own canvases. Some of those I don't believe he ever saw anywhere else. But Pop's worth knowing if you're keen to paint. He's a whole Art Students' League in himself. Come on, he'll be proud to have you notice him."
Wiping his hands neatly on his jacket—plainly a long-established custom with him—Griggs led the way to a room across the hall from Ewing's. He opened the door in answer to a call and pushed Ewing in before him. Sydenham leaned back on his stool to peer at them around the corner of his easel.
He was an old man, as Griggs had said. White hair fell in sparse locks over his ears, and his short, roughly pointed beard was scant enough to reveal sunken cheeks. But the face was tanned to a wholesome brown, and the eyes that glanced over his gold-rimmed spectacles were full of fresh good-humor. He nodded to Griggs and clambered down from his stool to greet Ewing.
"He's a line man now," announced Griggs after the introduction, "but some busybody has gone and told him that there's such a thing as real color. Of course I don't pretend to know myself, but I told him you did. He's your neighbor on this floor. Run in often and make yourselves at home with each other," he concluded cordially. "I must hurry back and finish a fight."
"May I look?" asked Ewing, his eyes running about the room to the many canvases.