I turned round, and confronted a little man with his legs astraddle, and his hands in his pockets. He had light-gray eyes, red all round the lids, bristling pepper-colored hair, an unnaturally rosy complexion, and an eager, impudent, clever look. I made two discoveries in one glance at him: First, that he was a wretched subject for a portrait; secondly, that, whatever he might do or say, it would not be of the least use for me to stand on my dignity with him.
“I shall be ready directly, sir,” said I.
“Ready directly?” repeated my new sitter. “What do you mean, Mr. Artist, by ready directly? I’m ready now. What was your contract with the Town Council, who have subscribed for this picture? To paint the portrait. And what was my contract? To sit for it. Here am I ready to sit, and there are you not ready to paint me. According to all the rules of law and logic, you are committing a breach of contract already. Stop! let’s have a look at your paints. Are they the best quality? If not, I warn you, sir, there’s a second breach of contract! Brushes, too? Why, they’re old brushes, by the Lord Harry! The Town Council pays you well, Mr. Artist; why don’t you work for them with new brushes? What? you work best with old? I contend, sir, that you can’t. Does my housemaid clean best with an old broom? Do my clerks write best with old pens? Don’t color up, and don’t look as if you were going to quarrel with me! You can’t quarrel with me. If you were fifty times as irritable a man as you look, you couldn’t quarrel with me. I’m not young, and I’m not touchy—I’m Boxsious, the lawyer; the only man in the world who can’t be insulted, try it how you like!”
He chuckled as he said this, and walked away to the window. It was quite useless to take anything he said seriously, so I finished preparing my palette for the morning’s work with the utmost serenity of look and manner that I could possibly assume.
“There!” he went on, looking out of the window; “do you see that fat man slouching along the Parade, with a snuffy nose? That’s my favorite enemy, Dunball. He tried to quarrel with me ten years ago, and he has done nothing but bring out the hidden benevolence of my character ever since. Look at him! look how he frowns as he turns this way. And now look at me! I can smile and nod to him. I make a point of always smiling and nodding to him—it keeps my hand in for other enemies. Good-morning! (I’ve cast him twice in heavy damages) good-morning, Mr. Dunball. He bears malice, you see; he won’t speak; he’s short in the neck, passionate, and four times as fat as he ought to be; he has fought against my amiability for ten mortal years; when he can’t fight any longer, he’ll die suddenly, and I shall be the innocent cause of it.”
Mr. Boxsious uttered this fatal prophecy with extraordinary complacency, nodding and smiling out of the window all the time at the unfortunate man who had rashly tried to provoke him. When his favorite enemy was out of sight, he turned away, and indulged himself in a brisk turn or two up and down the room. Meanwhile I lifted my canvas on the easel, and was on the point of asking him to sit down, when he assailed me again.
“Now, Mr. Artist,” he cried, quickening his walk impatiently, “in the interests of the Town Council, your employers, allow me to ask you for the last time when you are going to begin?”
“And allow me, Mr. Boxsious, in the interest of the Town Council also,” said I, “to ask you if your notion of the proper way of sitting for your portrait is to walk about the room!”
“Aha! well put—devilish well put!” returned Mr. Boxsious; “that’s the only sensible thing you have said since you entered my house; I begin to like you already.” With these words he nodded at me approvingly, and jumped into the high chair that I had placed for him with the alacrity of a young man.
“I say, Mr. Artist,” he went on, when I had put him into the right position (he insisted on the front view of his face being taken, because the Town Council would get the most for their money in that way), “you don’t have many such good jobs as this, do you?”