"How-about that ear, Mr. Whistler? Don't forget to finish that." At
the last session, all being finished but this ear, Whistler said,
"Well, I think I'm through; now I'll sign it." This he did in a very
solemn and important way.

"But my ear!" exclaimed the victim. "You're not going to leave it that
way?"

"Oh," said Whistler, grimly, "you can put it in after you get home."

* * * * *

He occasionally contemplated visiting America in his late years, but
the dread of the journey was too much for him to overcome. "If I
escape the Atlantic," he said, "I shall be wrecked by some reporter at
the pier." Finally, he definitely canceled his last proposed trip,
observing airily: "One cannot continuously disappoint a continent."

"America," he once said, lightly, "is a country where I never can be a
prophet."

* * * * *

Sir Rennell Rodd recalled that at a breakfast Waldo Story gave at
Dieu-donné's in Paris there was a great company, including Whistler.
Every one there was by the way of having written a book or painted a
picture, or having in some way outraged the Philistine, with the
exception of one young gentleman whose _raison d'être_ was not so
apparent as his high collar and the glory of his attire. He