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ART VERSUS MUSIC
107
view? On no account could the name of P. Sauerbien be connected with it — leave it for a day ; 'he would see.
John trod the space back to the studio building with the stride of one who has successfully hoodwinked the custodian of the symphonic art. The "Sun-bath" and Ethel were awaiting a continuance of his presence, and he fell to, in an effort to treat them impartially. Now that, unknown to each other, they had made their separate journeys into Samaria, a third invisible something might have been seen gliding out of the open door — it was that poor relation, pity, who had decited to quit this opinionated place.
On the following morning, so bright that the finished "Sun-bath" looked quite unnatural, and so early that John still lay composed upon his couch, a peremptory knocking fell upon his door. With many openings of doors, other tenants urged the redfaced applicant to redouble his tattoo, or else go away; but P. Sauerbien continued his knuckle serenade, with the cadence of a music-master. Ethel, thru the chink of her door, watched his efforts, with much amusement.
John's first sleep-folded thought was that she had started, betimes, a major assault on the bass; but the noise continuing, he opened his door, to be confronted by the irate publisher.
' ' Got im Himmel ! " he panted, ' ' are you daub, as well as tone-deaf? Are you the agent for the author of 'The Battle of the Flowers' ?"
John confessed that he was. "Well, here it is!" P. Sauerbien shouted. "It is impossible for even my printer to read it without much sickness. ' '
John reminded him of his willingness to pay for it.
"Pay for it?" the apoplectic Teuton continued ; " I will not have these libels on the pianoforte coming into my house. Was the authoress serious ? Did she contemplate a 'Massacre of the Cabbages,' next?"
The luckless artist was too dumbfounded to maintain a dignified attitude longer. He received the score
from the publisher's hands as a duellist receives the point of his opponent's weapon — in a very awkward, not to say pained, manner. P. Sauerbien, like a superheated stove, turned away from him, and waddled down the hallway.
As for Ethel, when she softly closed her door, her little card house tumbled about her with unheroic discords, and the loud pedal lashed to the floor. Could that insufferable, fat little man be Sauerbien, the wellknown publisher? And had her "Battle of the Flowers" so stirred up his martial spirit ? She saw it all now in pure drab shadings — her frailty,
THEY LOOK IN VAIN FOR JOHN S MASTERPIECE
and John's knightship of it; her immaturity, and the giant buffet of the world.
Like a sensible little girl at heart, she resolved to forget it all and to go home with colors flying. But she would do her good deed, too, in partial compensation.
Late in the day, when John had gone to a framer, the genteel black wagon of the art dealer had called, and the scarce-dry "Sun-bath" had been swaddled tenderly in cloths and borne to it. On his return, her story would run, that the dealer, in making the rounds of the studio, had chanced upon his picture, and asked to exhibit it in his gallery. On the morrow, they, with admiring fellow-workers in the building, would call at the gallery to inspect it.