nevertheless intruded boldly into the talk and laid down his opinions
very flatly. He even went so far as to combat some dictum of the
master's, whereat that gentleman adjusted his glasses and, looking
pleasantly at the youth, queried:

"And whose son are you?"

When Dorothy Menpes was a babe in the cradle a white feather lay
across her infant brow. The sight pleased Whistler. "That child is
going to develop into something great," he prophesied, "for see, she
begins with a feather, just like me."

* * * * *

In the last two years of his life Mr. Whistler's disputes grew less
frequent and his public flashes were few. The _Morning Post_ of
London, however, provoked an admirable specimen of his best style,
which it printed under date of August 6th, 1902. In its "Art and
Artists" column the paper had made the following statement:

"Mr. Whistler is so young in spirit that his friends must have read
with surprise the Dutch physician's announcement that the present
illness is due to 'advanced age.' In England sixty-seven is not
exactly regarded as 'advanced age,' but even for the gay 'butterfly'
time does not stand still, and some who are unacquainted with the
details of Mr. Whistler's career, though they know his work well, will
be surprised to learn that he was exhibiting at the Academy
forty-three years ago. His contributions to the exhibition of 1859
were 'Two Etchings from Nature,' and at intervals during the following
fourteen or fifteen years Mr. Whistler was represented at the Academy