“Wrong, you air, stranger,” replied the trader; “Judge Lynch regards affairs of honour in a very different light, I guess. I don’t think he’d scrag me for that.”
Further investigation of this interesting topic was interrupted by Abel Jefferson, who had been gazing in wrapt admiration at the picture for at least five minutes, pronouncing the work “fuss rate,” emphatically.
“It’s jest what’ll warm up the old ’ooman’s heart, like a big fire in a winter day. Won’t she screech when she claps her peepers on’t, an’ go yellin’ round among the neighbours, shewin’ the pictur’ o’ ‘her boy Abel,’ an’ his house at the gold diggin’s?”
The two friends commented pretty freely on the merits of the work, without the smallest consideration for the feelings of the artist. Fortunately they had nothing but good to say about it. Sam Scott, indeed, objected a little to the sketchy manner in which some of the subordinate accessories were touched in, and remarked that the two large hairs on the mole were almost invisible; but Jefferson persisted in maintaining that the work was “fuss rate,” and faultless.
The stipulated sum was paid; and Ned, bidding his new friends good-morning, returned to the inn, for the purpose of discussing dinner and plans with Tom Collins.
Chapter Eighteen.
Ned’s New Profession pays admirably—He and Tom Wax Philosophical—“Pat” comes for a “Landscape” of himself—Lynch Law and the Doctors—Ned’s Sitters—A Yankee Swell receives a Gentle Rebuff.
The ups and downs, and the outs and ins of life are, as every one is aware, exceedingly curious,—sometimes pleasant, often the reverse, and not infrequently abrupt.