Paris, and that he always came by the Dieppe route, because it gave
you so much longer for painting sea effects. Whether Oscar thought he
was going to have an opportunity of scoring or what, he was tempted to
break through the contempt with which-he had treated Whistler's other
remarks. 'And how many did you paint in four hours, Jimmy?' he asked,
with his most magnificent air of patronage. 'I'm not sure,' said the
irrepressible Jimmy, quite gravely, 'but I think four or five
hundred."'

* * * * *

A London visitor at the Lambs Club recounted a new version of the
notable enmity which followed the friendship that had existed between
Whistler and Wilde. The latter one day asked the artist's opinion upon
a poem which he had written, presenting a copy to be read. Whistler
read it and was handing it back without comment.

"Well," queried Wilde, "do you perceive any worth?"

"It's worth its weight in gold," replied Whistler.

The poem was written on the very thinnest tissue-paper, weighing
practically nothing. The coolness between the two men is said to have
dated from that moment.

* * * * *

Walking up to Du Maurier and Wilde at the time the former was
portraying the Postlethwaites in _Punch_, Whistler asked, whimsically,
"I say, which of you invented the other, eh?"