"Look! Look, now, at this!"

The Irishman laughed sympathetically; the artist, as belonging to a race
apart, was known by him and liked, but he rose and came round the table
with a certain scepticism. Life had taught him that temperament and
output are different things.

He leaned over the boy's chair; then suddenly he laid his hand on his
shoulder and gripped it, his own face lighting up.

"Why, boy!" he cried. "This is clever--clever--clever! I'm a Dutchman,
if this isn't the real thing! Why on earth didn't you tell me you could
do it?"

The boy laughed in sheer delight and, bending over the table, added a
lingering touch or two to his work--a rough expressive sketch of himself
standing back from an easel, a palette in his left hand, a brush in his
right, his hair unkempt, his whole attitude comically suggestive of an
artist in a moment of delirious oblivion. It was the curt, abrupt
expression of a mood, but there was cleverness, distinction, humor in
every line.

"Boy, this is fine! Fine! That duel will be fought, take my word for
it. But, look here, we must toast this first attempt! Madame! Madame!"
He literally shouted the words, and madame came flying out.

"Madame, have you a liqueur brandy--very old? I have discovered that
this is a _fête_ day."