“Oh, ho!” he asked, “so you blush for your work, mon cher? Yet your talent is very interesting, very American.”
“Don’t let us talk of such trifles,” said Phil; “I show them only to the ignorant. You’re not really acquainted with my works, M. Caracal—those which I paint for myself alone, those into which I put my soul, as your friend, the painter-philosopher Socrate, used to say. Allow me to show them to you. Enter, M. Caracal!”
Lifting the portière of the little room, Phil showed the way to Caracal, who stopped on the threshold in amazement. Phil was fond of practical jokes. With imperturbable seriousness he had gathered in this room all the grotesque works which he had found among the art-junk-dealers in his chance explorations. If he found a picture cast aside,—provided it was utterly bad,—Phil bought it. There was one canvas, among the others, which represented cows—something so fearful that Phil, the first time he saw it, scarcely knew whether to groan, or shout with laughter.
It was in his concierge’s lodge that Phil one day had conceived the idea of this collection. The old man of “my time,” the former inspector of the Louvre roofs, had on his chimney under bell-glasses two little personages—Monsieur and Madame—made from lobster-shells; a claw formed the nose, and the tail was turned into coat-skirts.
“Eureka!” thought Phil, when he saw them. “But I must have something better still.” And he at once began a search through the slums of impressionism and modern style; and he had found what he wanted.
“Eh bien, M. Caracal, what do you think of that?” asked Phil.
Caracal, at first upset, pulled himself together.
“Bravo, mon cher! you’ve found your line! You are revealed to yourself! My congratulations, cher ami!”
“Does the ignoramus take it seriously?—No; that would be too funny!” Phil said to himself amazed in his turn.
Phil, with his glass beads jingling at every step, took the cow painting and set it in full light. The frightful beasts lowered their crocodile heads to graze in a fantastic meadow whose daisies resembled white plates with egg-yolks in the middle.