“I must learn this trade of painting,” said Wynne, “it’s the short road to all knowledge.”
He flung himself into the work with an energy truly remarkable. From early morning till midnight he battled with the craft, and thought and talked of nothing else. In the cafés, where students met and thrashed out their thousand ideas, Wynne was well bethought, for although his skill with a brush was small he could advance and support a theory with the liveliest talker in the Quartier. His success in argument was, perhaps, not altogether of advantage to his immortal soul, since it led him to cultivate a cynical attitude toward most affairs. He very readily became conversant with the works of the Masters, old and new, and praised or attacked them with great impartiality. Preferably he would detract from accepted geniuses, and deliver the most scathing criticisms against pictures before which mankind had prostrated itself for centuries. One day he would admit of the value of no artist save Manet, and another would accuse him of possessing neither skill nor artistry, but merely “a singularly adroit knack of expressing vulgarity.”
He did not attempt to be honest in regard to his points of view, being perfectly satisfied so long as he could hold a controversial opinion.
Not infrequently high words would result from these discussions, and on one occasion a table was overset, glasses smashed, and a chair flung. Police arrived on the scene, and Wynne and three companions spent the night in a lockup. This he did not mind in the least, and continued to air his views in the small hours of the morning until threatened with solitary confinement unless he desisted.
VI
On the tenth week after his arrival in Paris, Wynne’s money gave out. He had not bothered to consider what he should do when this happened, and as a result poverty seized him unprepared.
To do him justice he did not bother in the least as to the future of his bodily welfare, but was distressed beyond expression at the thought of abandoning his studies.
A wild idea possessed him to sell some of his future years for a few more terms at the studio. He even went to the length of discussing the project with the Massier. This gentleman, however, shook his head dubiously.
“Impossible,” he said.
“Why?” said Wynne. “I’ll give two-thirds of all I earn for the next three years to any one who’ll finance me now.”