“What do you think of our Sunday papers here? You don’t have any Sunday papers over in London.”
“Oh yes, we do. But none of the big dailies have Sunday editions.”
“They are not as big, or as enterprising as ours, are they? One Sunday paper, you know, prints about as much as two or three thirty-five cent magazines.”
“What, the Sunday paper does?”
“Yes, the Sunday paper prints it, but doesn’t sell for that. We give ‘em more for the money than any magazine you ever saw.”
“You certainly print some very large papers.”
With this the reporter took his leave, and next morning Mr. Trenton saw the most astonishing account of his ideas on art matters imaginable. What struck him most forcibly was, that an article written by a person who admittedly knew nothing at all about art should be in general so free from error. The interview had a great number of head lines, and it was evident the paper desired to treat the artist with the utmost respect, and that it felt he showed his sense in preferring Boston to New York as a place of temporary residence; but what appalled him was the free and easy criticisms he was credited with having made on his own contemporaries in England. The principal points of each were summed up with a great deal of terseness and force, and in many cases were laughably true to life. It was evident that whoever touched up that interview possessed a very clear opinion and very accurate knowledge of the art movement in England.
Mr. Trenton thought he would sit down and write to the editor of the paper, correcting some of the more glaring inaccuracies; but a friend said—
“Oh, it is no use. Never mind. Nobody pays any attention to that. It’s all right anyhow.”
“Yes, but suppose the article should be copied in England, or suppose some of the papers should get over there?”