“To the Rocky Mountains?”
“Oh no, no. You see I have been only a few weeks in this country. I have confined my attention to Canada mainly, the Quebec region and around there, although I have been among the White Mountains, and the Catskills, and the Adirondacks.”
“What school of art do you belong to?”
“School? Well, I don’t know that I belong to any. May I ask if you are a connoisseur in art matters. Are you the art critic of your journal?”
“Me? No—oh no. I don’t know the first darn thing about it. That’s why they sent me.”
“Well, I should have thought, if he wished to get anything worth publishing, your editor would have sent somebody who was at least familiar with the subject he has to write about.”
“I dare say; but, that ain’t the way to get snappy articles written. You take an art man, now, for instance; he’s prejudiced. He thinks one school is all right, and another school isn’t; and he is apt to work in his own fads. Now, if our man liked the French school, and despised the English school, or the German school, if there is one, or the Italian school, whatever it happened to be, and you went against that; why, don’t you see, he would think you didn’t know anything, and write you up that way. Now, I am perfectly unprejudiced. I want to write a good readable article, and I don’t care a hang which school is the best or the worst, or anything else about it.”
“Ah! I see. Well, in that case, you certainly approach your work without bias.”
“You bet I do. Now, who do you think is the best painter in England?”
“In what line?”