“Do you really want to be a painter?” asked Carl suddenly. “That’s such a queer thing to want to be.”
“Oh, well,” said Paul, evidently not anxious to pursue the subject.
“And so—useless.”
“That’s what Bill Tyler used to say. And yet he was the one who took me to a picture gallery for the first time in my life—I was only eleven or twelve years old. And it was there that I met old Peguignot—so it was partly Bill’s fault that I began to think about painting at all. The old duffer! He’d spend an entire afternoon rambling around some gallery, going into raptures over this picture and that, pointing out what he liked and what he didn’t like—and then when we’d come out, he’d say, ’but that’s all nonsense, and waste of time.’”
“Who was Peguignot?”
“Why, he was a little artist—a funny, shabby, excitable little guy, with a perfectly enormous moustache that looked as if it were made out of a lot of black hairpins; and his eyebrows were just like it. When he talked and got enthusiastic about something, they’d all work up and down. Bill and I came upon him one day in some gallery or other. He was sitting up on a high stool making a copy of a big religious painting. Bill began to talk to him, and, I suppose, just to tease him, started on his favorite line about what nonsense it all was. I thought Peguignot would blow up. He shook a whole handful of wet paint-brushes in Bill’s face, called him every name he could think of—I began to laugh and then he turned on me, and told me I was a miserable boy, and please both of us to go far away from him. But I said I agreed with him altogether, and then we both started in on Bill. Well, anyhow it wound up by all of us getting to be the best of friends; and after that Bill and I used to go around and see him quite often. And he taught me all I ever learned about painting. He wasn’t very good himself, and he certainly wasn’t successful, but he knew a lot, and when he wasn’t exploding about something, he could tell what he knew very clearly. Poor little beggar, he had a hard time of it—he was as poverty-stricken as Job most of the time.” And then Paul began to laugh. “I remember one day his landlady came up to get his rent. He heard her coming, and got into a perfect panic, and was actually trying to crawl under his bed when she knocked at the door. Then he got very calm and dignified, and told me to let her in. So in she came, and then an argument began, and finally both of them started to weep and wring their hands—you never heard such a rumpus. Finally he said to her, ‘Madam, put me out. Put me out on the streets—it is what I deserve,’ and he began to hunt for his bedroom slippers which were the things that were most precious to him I suppose. And then she threw her apron over her head and wailed, and said she couldn’t do that because he was so ‘leetle.’ Well, at last he took a picture that I had painted down from his easel, and said to her, ‘Madam, I give you this. Sell it, and keep the money.’ Well, she stood there glowering as if she simply couldn’t think of anything strong enough to say; until she suddenly roared out, ‘Ah-h-h! You leetle moustache! Why don’t you sell it yourself! Then I should have my money.’ And she took the picture with both hands, and banged him over the head with it. But at last she said she’d wait another month, and then she would have him imprisoned—and off she went with my picture.”
Carl laughed.
“And did he pay her the next month?”
“I don’t know. In any case, he certainly wasn’t imprisoned. But don’t think he took his debts lightly. He was ashamed of them and he was ashamed of himself; and he worked for money in the only way he could, and never tried to shirk his responsibilities. People knew that, and they were lenient with him, because he was honest and good and they loved him.”
There was a pause, then Carl asked curiously, but with some hesitation,