"Leave fault-finding to Fleet Street," said Barron; "let the press people
tell you where you are wrong. I am no critic and I know what a mountain of
hard work went to this."

"That's all right, old man; never mind the work--or me. Be impartial."

"Why should I? To be impartial, as this world wags, is to be friendless."

"Good Lord! d'you think I mind mauling? There's something wrong or you
wouldn't be so deucedly evasive. Out with it!"

"Well, your sailor's not dead."

Brady roared with laughter.

"Man! the poor devil's been in the water a week!"

"Not he. 'Tis a mistake in nine painted corpses out of ten. If you want to
paint a drowned man, wait till you've seen one close. That sailor in the
seaweed's asleep. Sleep is graceful, remember; death by drowning is
generally ugly--stiff, stark, hideous, eyeless, fish-gnawed a week after
the event. But what does it matter? You've painted a great picture. That
sea, with the circular swirl, as each wave goes back into the belly of the
next, is well done; and those lumps of spume fluttering above
watermark--that was finely noted. Easy to write down in print, but
difficult as the fiend to paint. And the picture is full of wind too. Your
troubles are amply repaid and I congratulate you. A man who could paint
that will go as far as he likes."