“Why not? Because you must be crazy to play the critic after this fashion; too much blue indeed! What, I, the pupil of Ruysdael, the third cousin of Gerard Douw’s great-grandson, not know how to color a sky? Know that my reputation has been long established. I have a Red Horse at Malines, a Green Bear at Namur, and a Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, before which every passenger stops fixed in admiration!”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed the critic, as he snatched the palette from the painter’s hand. “You deserve to have your own portrait painted to serve for the sign of the Flemish Ass!” In his indignation he mounted the ladder with the activity of a boy, and began with the palm of his hand to efface the chef d’oeuvre of Gerard Douw’s great-grandson’s third cousin.
“Stop! You old charlatan!” shouted the latter, “you are ruining my sign! Why, it’s worth thirty-five francs. And then my reputation—lost! gone for ever!”
He shook the ladder violently to make his persecutor descend. But the latter, undisturbed either by that or by the presence of a crowd of villagers, attracted by the dispute, continued mercilessly to blot out the glowing landscape. Then, using merely the point of his finger and the handle of a brush, he sketched, in masterly outline, three Flemish boors, with beer-glasses in their hands, drinking to the rising sun; which appeared above the horizon, dispersing the gloom of a grayish morning sky. One of the faces presented a strong and laughable caricature of the supplanted sign-painter. The spectators at first were greatly disposed to take part with their countryman against the intrusive stranger. What right had he to interfere? There was no end to the impudence of these foreigners.
As, however, they watched and grumbled, the grumbling gradually ceased, and was turned into a murmur of approbation when the design became apparent. The owner of the inn was the first to cry “Bravo!” and even Gerard Douw’s cousin nine times removed, felt his fury calming down into admiration.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, “you belong to the craft, honest man, and there’s no use in denying it. Yes, yes,” he continued, laughing, as he turned toward his neighbors, “this is a French sign-painter, who wishes to have a jest with me. Well, I must frankly say he knows what he is about.”
The old man was about to descend from the ladder, when a gentleman, riding a beautiful English horse, made his way through the crowd.
“That painting is mine!” he exclaimed in French, but with a foreign accent. “I will give a hundred guineas for it!”
“Another madman!” exclaimed the native genius. “Hang me, but all these foreigners are mad!”
“What do you mean, monsieur?” said the innkeeper, uncommonly interested.