“Taken to helping yourself!” exclaimed Mr. Blyth. “What do you mean?”
“Oh!” said Zack, “don’t be afraid. It’s not thieving—it’s only barter. Look here, my dear fellow, this is how it is. A friend of mine, a junior clerk in our office, has three dozen cigars, and I have two staring flannel shirts, which are only fit for a snob to wear. The junior clerk gives me the three dozen cigars, and I give the junior clerk the two staring flannel shirts. That’s barter, and barter’s commerce, old boy! it’s all my father’s fault; he will make a tradesman of me. Dutiful behavior, isn’t it, to be doing a bit of commerce already on my own account?”
“I’ll tell you what, Zack,” said Mr. Blyth, “I don’t like the way you’re going on in at all. Your last letter made me very uneasy, I can promise you.”
“You can’t be half as uneasy as I am,” rejoined Zack. “I’m jolly enough here, to be sure, because I can’t help it somehow; but at home I’m the most miserable devil on the face of the earth. My father baulks me in everything, and makes me turn hypocrite, and take him in, in all sorts of ways—which I hate myself for doing; and yet can’t help doing, because he forces me to it. Why does he want to make me live in the same slow way that he does himself? There’s some difference in our ages, I rather think! Why does he bully me about being always home by eleven o’clock? Why does he force me into a tea-merchant’s office, when I want to be an artist, like you? I’m a perfect slave to commerce already. What do you think? I’m supposed to be sampling in the city at this very moment. The junior clerk’s doing the work for me; and he’s to have one of my dress-waistcoats to compensate him for the trouble. First my shirts; then my waistcoat; then my—confound it, sir, I shall be stripped to the skin, if this sort of thing goes on much longer!”
“Gently, Zack, gently. What would your father say if he heard you?”
“Oh, yes! it’s all very well, you old humbug, to shake your head at me; but you wouldn’t like being forced into an infernal tea-shop, and having all your pocket-money stopped, if it was your case. I won’t stand it—I have the patience of Job—but I won’t stand it! My mind’s made up: I want to be an artist, and I will be an artist. Don’t lecture, Blyth—it’s no use; but just tell me how I’m to begin learning to draw.”
Here Zack cunningly touched Valentine on his weak point. Art was his grand topic; and to ask his advice on that subject was to administer the sweetest flattery to his professional pride. He wheeled his chair round directly, so as to face young Thorpe. “If you’re really set on being an artist,” he began enthusiastically, “I rather fancy, Master Zack, I’m the man to help you. First of all, you must purify your taste by copying the glorious works of Greek sculpture—in short, you must form yourself on the Antique. Look there!—just what Madonna’s doing now; she’s forming herself on the Antique.”
Zack went immediately to look at Madonna’s drawing, the outline of which was now finished. “Beautiful! Splendid! Ah! confound it! yes! the glorious Greeks, and so forth, just as you say, Blyth. A most wonderful drawing! the finest thing of the kind I ever saw in my life!” Here he transferred his superlatives to his fingers, communicating them to Madonna through the medium of the deaf and dumb alphabet, which he had superficially mastered with extraordinary rapidity under Mr. and Mrs. Blyth’s tuition. Whatever Zack’s friends did Zack always admired with the wildest enthusiasm, and without an instant’s previous consideration. Any knowledge of what he praised, or why he praised it, was a slight superfluity of which he never felt the want. If Madonna had been a great astronomer, and had shown him pages of mathematical calculations, he would have overwhelmed her with eulogies just as glibly as—by means of the finger alphabet—he was overwhelming her now.
But Valentine’s pupil was used to be criticized as well as praised; and her head was in no danger of being turned by Zack’s admiration of her drawing. Looking up at him with a sly expression of incredulity, she signed these words in reply:—“I am afraid it ought to be a much better drawing than it is. Do you really like it?” Zack rejoined impetuously by a fresh torrent of superlatives. She watched his face, for a moment, rather anxiously and inquiringly, then bent down quickly over her drawing. He walked back to Valentine. Her eyes followed him—then returned once more to the paper before her. The color began to rise again in her cheek; a thoughtful expression stole calmly over her clear, happy eyes; she played nervously with the port-crayon that held her black and white chalk; looked attentively at the drawing; and, smiling very prettily at some fancy of her own, proceeded assiduously with her employment, altering and amending, as she went on, with more than usual industry and care.
What was Madonna thinking of? If she had been willing, and able, to utter her thoughts, she might have expressed them thus: “I wonder whether he likes my drawing? Shall I try hard if I can’t make it better worth pleasing him? I will! it shall be the best thing I have ever done. And then, when it is nicely finished, I will take it secretly to Mrs. Blyth to give from me, as my present to Zack.”