“I can’t afford it,” said Matt, frankly. “I’ve been there, but it’s a great job to get on without money, so I had to come back.”
“But couldn’t your uncle buy your pictures?”
“They weren’t good enough yet,” Matt explained, anxious to defend the family honor. “I want to study a lot more yet.”
“Nonsense! what do you want to study for? Why, that thar shark of yours licks creation.”
Matt shook his head. “I’ve got to go to Paris,” he said, “and to Italy, and see all the great pictures. That’s the only way a man can learn after a certain point.” He added, proudly, “My cousin was sent to Paris by the Royal Academy of London. He won the Gold Medal.”
“Why doesn’t your uncle send you there, then? He ’pears to have made his pile.”
Matt had to take another sip of whiskey before he could reply. “He knows I wouldn’t take anything from anybody.”
“Don’t be a goney. I began life with high notions. Them thar sponges you saw me sortin’ out just now—they’re Florida cup grasses, but the fine-shaped ones in the first basket are goin’ to be Levantine sponges soon as they are bleached with permanganate. Time was when I’d ’a thought that dishonest; now I see it’s only the outsides o’ things that the world wants. When you’re a boss painter nobody ’ll ask who bleached you.”
“I hope I can get on without bleaching,” Matt retorted.
“Ho, don’t get mad! I don’t mean to insinuate you’re not genuine. But the world ain’t a soft place to get on in. They don’t bath you with rose-water and Turkey firsts. I kinder fancy,” he added, with a roguish twinkle, “you must have found that out of late. Now, what you want, Mr. Strang, is to marry a purty, level-headed, healthy gal, with two or three thousand dollars to tide over the time till you can make your five thousand a pictur.”