A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The Underdog

F >> F. Hopkinson Smith >> The Underdog




"Old John" at Solari's took their order--a porter-house steak with
mushrooms, peas, cold asparagus, a pint of extra dry--in honor of the
day, Jack insisted, although Sam protested to the verge of
discourtesy--together with the usual assortment of small drinkables and
long smokables--a Reina Victoria each.

On the way back to the studio the two stopped to look in a shop-window,
when Jack gave a cry of delight and pressed his nose against the glass
to get a better view of a small picture by Monet resting on an easel.

"By the gods, Sam!--isn't that a corker! See the way those trees are
painted! Look at the air and light in it--not a value out of
scale--perfectly charming!--_charming_," and he dived into the shop
before Sam. could check him.

In a moment he was out again, shaking his head, chewing his under-lip,
and taking another devouring look at the canvas.

"What do they want for it, Jack?" asked Sam--his standard of merit was
always the cost of a thing.

"About half what it's worth--six hundred dollars."

"Whew!" burst out Sam; "that's nearly as much as I make in a year. I
wouldn't give five dollars for it."

Jack's face was still pressed against the glass of the window, his eyes
riveted on the canvas. He either did not hear or would not answer his
friend's criticism.

"Buy it, Jack," Sam continued, with a laugh, the hopelessness of the
purchase making him the more insistent. "Hang it under the lamp, old
man--I'll pay for the candles."

"I would," said Jack, gravely and in perfect seriousness, "only the
governor's allowance isn't due for a week, and the luncheon took my
last cent."

The next day, after business hours, Sam, in the goodness of his heart,
called to comfort Jack over the loss of the Monet--a loss as real to the
painter as if he had once possessed it--he _had_ in that first glance
through the window-pane; every line and tone and brush-mark was his own.
So great was Sam's sympathy for Jack, and his interest in the matter,
that he had called upon a real millionaire and had made an appointment
for him to come to Jack's studio that same afternoon, in the hope that
he would leave part of his wealth behind him in exchange for one of
Jack's masterpieces.

Sam found Jack flat on the floor, his back supported by a cushion
propped against the divan. He was gloating over a small picture, its
frame tilted back on the upright of his easel. It was the Monet!

"Did he loan it to you, old man?" Sam inquired.

"Loan it to me, you quill-driver! No, I bought it!"

"For how much?"

"Full price--six hundred dollars. Do you suppose I'd insult Monet by
dickering for it?"

"What have you got to pay it with?" This came in a hopeless tone.

"Not a cent! What difference does that make? Samuel, you interest me.
Why is it your soul never rises above dollars and cents?"

"But, Jack--you can't take his property and----"

"I can't--can't I? _His_ property! Do you suppose Monet painted it to
please that one-eyed, double-jointed dealer, who don't know a picture
from a hole in the ground! Monet painted it for me--me, Samuel--ME--who
gets more comfort out of it than a dozen dealers--ME--and that part of
the human race who know a good thing when they see it. You don't belong
to it, Samuel. What's six hundred or six millions to do with it? It's
got no price, and never will have any price. It's a work of art,
Samuel--a work of art. That's one thing you don't understand and
never will."

"But he paid his money for it and it's not right----"

"Of course--that's the only good thing he has done--paid for it so that
it could get over here where I could just wallow in it. Get down here,
you heathen, take off your shoes and bow three times to the floor and
then feast your eyes. You think you've seen landscapes before, but you
haven't. You've only seen fifty cents' worth of good canvas spoiled by
ten cents' worth of paint. I put it that way, Samuel, because that's the
only way you'll understand it. Look at it! Did you ever see such a sky?
Why, it's like a slash of light across a mountain-pool! I tell
you--Samuel--that's a masterpiece!"

While they were discussing the merits of the landscape and the demerits
of the transaction there came a knock at the door and the Moneybags
walked in. Before he opened his lips Jack had taken his measure. He was
one of those connoisseurs who know it all. The town is full of them.

A short connoisseur with a red face--red in spots--close-clipped gray
hair that stood up on his head like a polishing brush, gold eyeglasses
attached to a wide black ribbon, and a scissored mustache. He was
dressed in a faultlessly fitting serge suit enlivened by a nankeen
waistcoat supporting a gold watch-chain. The fingers of one hand
clutched a palm-leaf fan; the fingers of the other were extended toward
Jack. He had known Jack's governor for years, and so a too formal
introduction was unnecessary.

"Show me what you've got," he began, "the latest, understand. Wife wants
something to hang over the sideboard. You've been doing some new things,
I hear from Ruggles."

The tone of the request grated on Jack, who had risen to his feet the
moment "His Finance" (as he insisted on calling him afterward to Sam)
had opened the door. He felt instantly that the atmosphere of his
sanctum had, to a certain extent, been polluted. But that Sam's eyes
were upon him he would have denied point-blank that he had a single
canvas of any kind for sale, and so closed the incident.

Sam saw the wavering look in his friend's face and started in to
overhaul a rack of unframed pictures with their faces turned to the
wall. These he placed one after the other on the ledge of the easel and
immediately above the Monet, which still kept its place on the floor,
its sunny face gazing up at the shopkeeper, his clerk, and
bin customer.

"This the newest one you've got?" asked the millionnaire, in the same
tone he would have used to his tailor, as he pointed to a picture of a
strip of land between sea and sky--one of those uncertain landscapes
that a man is righteously excused for hanging upside down.

"Yes," said Jack, with a grave face, "right off the ice."

Sam winced, but "His Finance" either did not hear it or supposed it was
some art-slang common to such a place.

"This another?" he inquired, fixing his glasses in place and hending
down closer to the Monet.

"No--that's out of another refrigerator," remarked Jack, carelessly--not
a smile on his face.

"Rather a neat thing," continued the Moneybags. "Looks just like a place
up in Somesbury where I was born--same old pasture. What's the price?"

"It isn't for sale," answered Jack, in a decided tone.

"Not for sale?"

"No."

"Well, I rather like it," and he bent down closer, "and, if you can fix
a figure, I might----"

"I can't fix a figure, for it isn't for sale. I didn't paint it--it's
one of Monet's."

"Belongs to you--don't it?"

"Yes--belongs to me."

"Well, how about a thousand dollars for it?"

Sam's heart leaped to his throat, but Jack's face never showed a
wrinkle.

"Thanks; much obliged, but I'll hold on to it for a while. I'm not
through with it yet."

"If you decide to sell it will you let me know?"

"Yes," said Jack, grimly, and picking up the canvas and carrying it
across the room, he turned its face to the wall.

While Sam was bowing the millionnaire out (there was nothing but the
Monet, of course, which he wanted now that he couldn't buy it), Jack
occupied the minutes in making a caricature of His Finance on a
fresh canvas.

Sam's opening sentences on his return, out of breath with his run back
up the three flights of stairs, were not complimentary. They began by
impeaching Jack's intelligence in terms more profane than polite, and
ended in the fervent hope that he make an instantaneous visit to His
Satanic Majesty.

In the midst of this discussion--in which one side roared his
displeasure and the other answered in pantomime between shouts of his
own laughter--there came another knock at the door, and the owner of the
Monet walked in. He, too, was in a disturbed state of mind. He had heard
some things during the day bearing directly on Jack's credit, and had
brought a bill with him for the value of the picture.

He would like the money then and there.

Jack's manner with the dealer was even more lordly and condescending
than with the would-be buyer.

"Want a check--when--now? My dear sir! when I bought that Monet was
there anything said about my paying for it in twenty-four hours?
To-morrow, when my argosies arrive laden with the spoils of the far
East, but not now. I never pay for anything immediately--it would injure
my credit. Sit down and let me offer you a cigar--my governor imports
'em and so you can be assured they are good. By the way--what's become
of that Ziem I saw in your window last week? The Metropolitan ought to
have that picture."

The one-eyed dealer--Jack was right, he had but one eye--at once agreed
with Jack as to the proper ultimate destination of the Ziem, and under
the influence of the cigar which Jack had insisted on lighting for him,
assisted by Jack's casual mention of his father--a name that was known
to be good for half a million--and encouraged--greatly encouraged
indeed--by an aside from Sam that the painter had already been offered
more than he paid for it by a man worth millions--under all these
influences, assistances, and encouragements, I say, the one-eyed dealer
so modified his demands that an additional twenty-four hours was
granted Jack in which to settle his account, the Monet to remain in his
possession.

When Sam returned from this second bowing-out his language was more
temperate. "You're a Cracker-Jack," was all he said, and closed the door
behind him.

During the ten days that followed, Jack gloated over the Monet and
staved off his various creditors until his father's semi-monthly
remittance arrived. Whenever the owner of the Monet mounted the stairs
by appointment and pounded at Jack's door, Jack let him pound, tiptoeing
about his room until he heard the anxious dealer's footsteps echoing
down the stairs in retreat.

On the day that the "governor's" remittance arrived--it came on the
fifteenth and the first of every month--Sam found a furniture van backed
up opposite Jack's studio street entrance. The gravity of the situation
instantly became apparent. The dealer had lost patience and had sent for
the picture; the van told the story. Had he not been sure of getting it
he would not have sent the van.

Sam went up three steps at a time and burst into Jack's studio. He found
its owner directing two men where to place an inlaid cabinet. It was a
large cabinet of ebony, elaborately carved and decorated, and the two
furniture men--judging from the way they were breathing--had had their
hands full in getting it up the three flights of stairs. Jack was
pushing back the easels and pictures to make room for it when Sam
entered. His first thought was for the unpaid-for picture.

"Monet gone, Jack?" he asked, glancing around the room hurriedly in his
anxiety to find it.

"Yea--last night. He came and took it away. Here," (this to the two men)
"shove it close to the wall," pointing to the cabinet. "There--now go
down and get the top, and look out you don't break those little drawers.
What's the matter with you, Samuel? You look as if somebody had walked
over your grave."

"And you had no trouble?"

"Trouble! What are you dilating about, Samuel? We never have any trouble
up here."

"Then it's because I've kept him quiet. I've been three times this week
and held him up--much as I could do to keep him from getting out
a warrant."

"Who?"

"Your one-eyed dealer, as you call him."

"My one-eyed dealer isn't worrying, Samuel. Look at this," and he pulled
out a receipted bill. "His name, isn't it? 'Received in full payment--
Six hundred dollars.' Seems odd, Samuel, doesn't it?"

"Did your governor send the money?"

"Did my governor send the money! My governor isn't so obliging.
Here--don't stand there with your eyes hanging out on your cheeks; look
on this--found it yesterday at Sighfor's. Isn't it a stunner? bottom
modern except the feet, but the top is Sixteenth Century. See the way
the tortoise-shell is worked in--lots of secret drawers, too, all
through it--going to keep my bills in one of 'em and lose the key. What
are you staring at, anyhow, Sam?"

"Well--but Jack--I don't see----"

"Of course you don't see! You think I robbed a bank or waylaid your
Moneybags. I did--took twelve hundred dollars out of his clothes in a
check on the spot--wrote it right there at that desk--for the Monet, and
sent it home to his Palazzo da Avenue. Then I took his dirty check,
indorsed it over to that one-eyed skinflint, got the balance in bills,
bought the cabinet for five hundred and eighty-two dollars cash--forgive
me, Samuel, but there was no other way--and here is just eighteen
dollars to the good"--and he pulled out some bank-notes--"or was before
I gave those two poor devils a dollar apiece for carrying up this
cabinet. To-night, Samuel--to-night--we will dine at the Waldorf."

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.