“Good Lord!” he ejaculated. “Did I ever tell anybody to come to Boston? Good Lord!” And he stood staring at me as if he still were unable to place me. Then after another pause, during which he stared at me curiously, he said:
“Come in, come in!”
While he was examining me, with his palette stuck on his thumb and a puzzled look on his face as if he didn’t quite know what to say to me or to do with me, I looked about me.
It was a very luxurious studio, full of beautiful draperies and tapestries. I was surprised, as the bare stairs I had climbed and the outside of the building was most unbeautiful. Sitting on a raised platform was a very lovely girl, dressed in a Greek costume, but the face on the canvas of the easel was not a bit like hers.
Mr. Sands, as though he had all of a sudden really placed me in his mind, held out his hand and shook mine heartily, exclaiming:
“Oh, yes, yes, now I remember. Ascough’s little girl. Well, well, and how is dear old Montreal? And your father, and his friend—what was his name? Mmmmum—let me see—that German artist—you remember him? He was crazy—a madman!”
Lorenz was the artist he meant. He was a great friend of my father’s. Papa thought him a genius, but mama did not like him at all, because she said he used such blasphemous language and was a bad influence on papa. I remember I used to love to hear him shout and declaim and denounce all the shams in art and the church. He was a man of immense stature, with a huge head like Walt Whitman’s. He used to come to the Château to see the Count, with whom he had long arguments and quarrels. He was German and the Count a Dane. He would shout excitedly at the Count and wave his arms, and the Count would shriek and double up with laughter sometimes, and Mr. Lorenz would shout: “Bravo! Bravo!”
They talked in German, and I couldn’t understand them, but I think they were making fun of English and American art. And as for the Canadian—! The mere mention of Canadian art was enough to make the old Count and Lorenz explode.
Poor old Lorenz! He never made any money, and was awfully shabby. One day papa sent him to Reggie’s office to try to sell a painting to the senior partner, who professed to be a connoisseur. Mr. Jones, the partner, came out from his private office in a hurry and, seeing Lorenz waiting, mistook him for a beggar. He put his hand in his pocket and gave Lorenz a dime. Then he passed out. Lorenz looked at the dime and said:
“Vell, it vill puy me two beers.”