Vain Fortune. George Moore
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at the corner of a table, and a small boy set to watch over it. His duty was also to shuffle his feet when the servant-maid approached, and a precious drubbing he got if he failed to shuffle them loud enough. The ''ot un,' as he was nicknamed, always had a pack of cards in his pocket, and to annex everything left on the tables he considered to be his privilege. One day, when he was asked how he came by the fine carnation in his buttonhole, he said it was a present from Sally, neglecting to add that he had told the child to steal it from a basket which a flower-girl had just put down.
Hubert hated this boy, and once could not resist boxing his ears. The ''ot un' writhed easily out of his reach, and then assailed him with foul language, and so loud were his words that they awoke the innocent cause of the quarrel, a weak, sickly-looking man, with pale blue eyes and a blonde beard. Hubert had protected him before now against the brutality of the boys, who, when they were not playing nap, divided their pleasantries between him and the decrepit prize-fighter. He came in about nine, took a cup of coffee from the counter, and settled himself for a snooze. The boys knew this, and it was their amusement to keep him awake by pelting him with egg-shells and other missiles. Hubert noticed that he had always with him a red handkerchief full of some sort of loose rubbish, which the boys gathered when it fell about the floor, or purloined from the handkerchief when they judged that the owner was sufficiently fast asleep. Hubert now saw that the handkerchief was filled with bits of coloured chalk, and guessed that the man must be a pavement artist.
'A dirty, hignominious lot, them boys is,' said the artist, fixing his pale, melancholy eyes on Hubert; 'bad manners, no eddication, and, above all, no respect.'
'They are an unmannerly lot—that Jew boy especially. I don't think there's a vice he hasn't got.'
The artist stared at Hubert a long time in silence. A thought seemed to be stirring in his mind.
'I'm speaking, I can see, to a man of eddication. I'm a fust-rate judge of character, though I be but a pavement artist; but a picture's none the less a picture, no matter where it is drawn. That's true, ain't it?'
'Quite true. A horse is a horse, and an ass is an ass, no matter what stable you put them into.'
The artist laughed a guttural laugh, and, fixing his pale blue porcelain eyes on Hubert, he said—
'Yes; see I made no bloomin' error when I said you was a man of eddication. A literary gent, I should think. In the reporting line, most like. Down in the luck like myself. What was it—drink? Got the chuck?'
'No,' said Hubert, 'never touch it. Out of work.'
'No offence, master, we're all mortal, we is all weak, and in misfortune we goes to it. It was them boys that drove me to it.'
'How was that?'
'They was always round my show; no getting rid of them, and their remarks created a disturbance; the perlice said he wouldn't 'ave it, and when the perlice won't 'ave it, what's a poor man to do? They are that hignorant. But what's the use of talking of it, it only riles me.' The blue-eyed man lay back in his seat, and his head sank on his chest. He looked as if he were going to sleep again, but on Hubert's asking him to explain his troubles, he leaned across the table.
'Well, I'll tell yer. Yer be an eddicated man, and I likes to talk to them that 'as 'ad an eddication. Yer says, and werry truly, just now, that changing the stable don't change an 'orse into a hass, or a hass into an 'orse. That is werry true, most true, none but a eddicated man could 'ave made that 'ere hobservation. I likes yer for it. Give us yer 'and. The public just thinks too much of the stable, and not enough of what's inside. Leastways that's my experience of the public, and I 'ave been a-catering for the public ever since I was a growing lad—sides of bacon, ships on fire, good old ship on fire. … I knows the public. Yer don't follow me?'
'Not quite.'
'A moment, and I'll explain. You'll admit there's no blooming reason except the public's blooming hignorance why a man shouldn't do as good a picture on the pavement as on a piece of canvas, provided he 'ave the blooming genius. There is no doubt that with them 'ere chalks and a nice smooth stone that Raphael—I 'ave been to the National Gallery and 'ave studied 'is work, and werry fine some of it is, although I don't altogether hold—but that's another matter. What was I a-saying of? I remember—that with them 'ere chalks, and a nice smooth stone, there's no reason why a masterpiece shouldn't be done. That's right, ain't it? I ask you, as a man of eddication, to say if that ain't right; as a representative of the Press, I asks you to say.' Hubert nodded, and the pale-eyed man continued. 'Well, that's what the public won't see, can't see. Raphael, says I, could 'ave done a masterpiece with them 'ere chalks and a nice smooth stone. But do yer think 'e 'd 'ave been allowed? Do yer think the perlice would 'ave stood it? Do yer think the public would 'ave stood him doing masterpieces on the pavement? I'd give 'im just one afternoon. Them boys would 'ave got 'im into trouble, just as they did me. Raphael would 'ave been told to wipe them out just as I was.'
The conversation paused; and, half amused, half frightened, Hubert considered the pale vague face, and he was struck by the scattered look of aspiration that wandered in the pale blue eyes.
'I'll tell you,' said the man, growing more excited, and leaning further across the table; 'I'll tell you, because I knows you for an eddicated man, and won't blab. S'pose yer thinks, like the rest of the world, that the chaps wot smears, for it ain't drawing, the pavement with bits of bacon, a ship on fire, and the regulation oysters, does them out of their own 'eads?' Hubert nodded. 'I'm not surprised that you do, all the world do, and the public chucks down its coppers to the poor hartist; but 'e aint no hartist, no more than is them 'ere boys that did for my show.' Leaning still further forward, he lowered his voice to a whisper. 'They learns it all by 'art; there is schools for the teaching of it down in Whitechapel. They can just do what they learns by 'art, not one of them could draw that 'ere chair or table from natur'; but I could. I 'ave an original talent. It was a long time afore I found out it was there,' he said, tapping his forehead; 'but it is there,' he said, fixing his eyes on Hubert, 'and when it is there they can't take it away—I mean my mates—though they do laugh at my ideas. They call me "the genius," for they don't believe in me, but I believe in myself, and they laughs best that laughs last. … I don't know,' he said, looking round him, his eyes full of reverie, 'that the public liked my fancy landscapes better than the ship on fire, but I said the public will come to them in time, and I continued my fancy landscapes. But one day in Trafalgar Square it came on to rain very 'eavy, and I went for shelter into the National Gallery. It was my fust visit, and I was struck all of a 'eap, and ever since I can 'ardly bring myself to go on with the drudgery of the piece of bacon, and the piece of cheese, with the mouse nibbling at it. And ever since my 'ead 'as been filled with other things, though for a long time I could not make exactly out what. I 'ave 'eard that that is always the case with men that 'as an idea—daresay you 'ave found it so yourself. So in my spare time I goes to the National to think it out, and in studying the pictures there I got wery interested in a chap called Hetty, and 'e do paint the female form divine. I says to myself, Why not go in for lovely woman? the public may not care for fancy landscapes, but the public allus likes a lovely woman, and, as well as being popular, lovely woman is 'igh 'art. So, after dinner hour, I sets to work, and sketches in a blue sea with three bathers, and two boxes, with the 'orse's head looking out from behind one of the boxes. For a fust attempt at the nude, I assure you—it ain't my way to blow my own trumpet, but I can say that the crowd that 'ere picture did draw was bigger than any that 'ad assembled about the bits o' bacon and ship-a-fire of all the other coves. 'Ad I been let alone, I should 'ave made my fortune, but the crowd was so big and the curiosity so great that it took the perlice all their time to keep the pavement from being blocked. It wasn't that the public didn't like it enough, it was that the public liked it too much, that was the reason of my misfortune.'
'What do you mean?' said Hubert.
'Well, yer see them boys was a-hawking their cheap toys in the neighbourhood, and when they got wind of my success they comes round to see, and they remains on account of the crowd. Pockets