“Boisterous brute,” his comrades said behind his back, but the energetic shoulder-blow or hand-clasp merely meant that Barney was very glad indeed to meet a friend, and to let the friend know that although he was very poor and Barney very rich this circumstance need not make the slightest difference between them.
It is possible that in the far West, or in the Australian bush, where muscle counts for something, there was a place yawning for Barney; perhaps there was a place for him even in London, but if there was, fate and Barney’s own inclinations removed him from it as far as possible. Barney was an artist; that is to say, he painted, or rather he put certain colours on canvas. For some years Barney had been the amazement of Julian’s school in Paris. He had a suite of rooms at the Grand Hotel, and he drove to the school in the Rue du Dragon every morning with a coachman and footman, the latter carrying Barney’s painting kit, while the former sat in a statuesque position on the box with his whip at the correct angle. Of course the art students were not going to stand that sort of thing, so they closed the gates one day and attacked the young man in a body. Barney at first thought it was fun, for he did not understand the language very well, and his good-natured roar sounded loud over the shrill cries of his antagonists. He reached for them one by one, placed them horizontally in a heap, then he rolled them over and over, flattening any student who attempted resurrection with a pat of his gigantic paw.
Whatever admiration they may have had for art at Julian’s, they certainly had a deep respect for muscle, and so left Barney alone after that. He invited them all to dinner at the Grand Hotel, and they came.
When his meteoric career as an art student in Paris was completed, he set himself up in an immense studio in Chelsea. The studio was furnished regardless of expense; there was everything in it that a studio ought to have—rich hangings from the East, tiger-skins from India, oriental rugs, ancient armour, easels of every pattern, luxurious lounges covered with stuffs from Persia.
“There,” cried Barney to Hurst Haldiman, with a grand sweep of his hand: “what do you think of that?”
Haldiman, one of the most talented students he had met in Paris, had now a garret of his own in London, where he painted when he got time, and did black and white work for the magazines and illustrated weeklies to keep himself in money. Barney had invited all his own old Parisian friends, one by one, to see his new quarters.
“Wonderful!” said Haldiman. “I venture to say there is not another studio in London like it.”
“That was my intention,” replied Barney. “They told me that Sir Richard Daubs had the finest studio in London. I said nothing, but went to work, and here I am. Have you ever seen Daubs’ studio, Hurst?”
“No. He is not so friendly as you are, Barney; he has never invited me.”
“Well, I’ll get you an invitation, and I want you to tell me candidly what you think of mine as compared with his.”