"With Mowbray," answered a third.

"Couldn't have done better, sir," and so on.

He approached a student slightly deaf, who stammered in reply, "I beg pardon?"

"Couldn't have done better, sir," responded Whistler, placidly, passing on to the next.

* * * * *

"It suffices not, Messieurs," he once observed to the class, "that a life spent among pictures makes a painter, else the policeman in the National Gallery might assert himself."

* * * * *

A pupil told him proudly she had studied with Bouguereau.

"Bouguereau! Bouguereau! Who is Bouguereau?"

* * * * *