* * * * *

Raging characteristically once when in Paris, he earned this rebuke
from Degas, the matchless draughtsman: "Whistler, you talk as if you
were a man without talent."

* * * * *

Some one gave Henry Irving a Whistler etching for a Christmas gift.
"Of course I was delighted," he said, "for I was a great admirer of
the artist as well as a personal friend of the man, but when I started
to hang the etching I was puzzled. I couldn't for the life of me tell
which was the top and which the bottom. Finally, after reversing the
picture half a dozen times and finding it looked equally well either
way up, I decided to try an experiment.

"I invited Whistler to dine with me and seated him opposite his
picture. During dinner he glanced at it from time to time; between the
soup and the fish he put up his eyeglass and squinted at it; between
the roast and the dessert he got up and walked over to take a closer
view of it; finally, by the time we reached the coffee, he had
discovered what the trouble was.

"'Why, Henry,' he said, reproachfully, 'you've hung my etching upside
down.'

"'Indeed!' I said. 'Well, my friend, it's taken you an hour to
discover it!'" "The man in possession" furnishes an amusing incident
in the artist's career.