ever hear such dissonance? His tie is in G major, and I am painting
this symphony in E minor. I will have to start it again. Take that
roaring tie of yours off, you miserable wretch! Remove it instantly!"

The visitor removed the "roar." "Thank goodness!" said Whistler. "My
sight is perfectly deaf!"

"I am so sorry, Mr. Whistler," apologized the scribe.

"Whistler, sir? Whistler? That's not my name!" he cried, in a highly
wrought voice.

"I beg your pardon?"

"That is not my name. I say, you don't seem to know your own language.
W-h is pronounced Wh-h-h--Wh-h-histler. Bah!"

* * * * *

Max Beerbohm, the caricaturist, was rather clumsy with the Gallic
tongue. Whistler used to term it "Max Beerbohm's Limburger French."

The carefully cultivated and insistently displayed white lock played a
part in many amusing incidents. Sir Coutts Lindsay's butler whispered
to him excitedly one evening: "There's a gent downstairs says he's
come to dinner, wot's forgot his necktie and stuck a feather in his
'air."

Another evening, at the theater, an usher said obligingly: "Beg
pardon, sir, but there's a white feather in your hair, just on top."