Beasts and Super-Beasts
extravagance; on ordinary days the artist contented himself with a
sevenpenny omelette and some bread and cheese, and there were evenings
when he did not put in an appearance at all. On the rare occasions when
he spoke of his own affairs it was observed that he began to talk more
about Pomerania and less about the great world of art.
“It is a busy time there now with us,” he said wistfully; “the schwines
are driven out into the fields after harvest, and must be looked after.
I could be helping to look after if I was there. Here it is difficult to
live; art is not appreciate.”
“Why don’t you go home on a visit?” some one asked tactfully.
“Ah, it cost money! There is the ship passage to Stolpmünde, and there
is money that I owe at my lodgings. Even here I owe a few schillings.
If I could sell some of my sketches—”
“Perhaps,” suggested Mrs. Nougat-Jones, “if you were to offer them for a
little less, some of us would be glad to buy a few. Ten shillings is
always a consideration, you know, to people who are not over well off.
Perhaps if you were to ask six or seven shillings—”
Once a peasant, always a peasant. The mere suggestion of a bargain to be
struck brought a twinkle of awakened alertness into the artist’s eyes,
and hardened the lines of his mouth.
“Nine schilling nine pence each,” he snapped, and seemed disappointed
that Mrs. Nougat-Jones did not pursue the subject further. He had
evidently expected her to offer seven and fourpence.
The weeks sped by, and Knopfschrank came more rarely to the restaurant in
Owl Street, while his meals on those occasions became more and more
meagre. And then came a triumphal day, when he appeared early in the
evening in a high state of elation, and ordered an elaborate meal that
scarcely stopped short of being a banquet. The ordinary resources of the
kitchen were supplemented by an imported dish of smoked goosebreast, a
Pomeranian delicacy that was luckily procurable at a firm of
_delikatessen_ merchants in Coventry Street, while a long-necked bottle
of Rhine wine gave a finishing touch of festivity and good cheer to the
crowded table.
“He has evidently sold his masterpiece,” whispered Sylvia Strubble to
Mrs. Nougat-Jones, who had come in late.
“Who has bought it?” she whispered back.
“Don’t know; he hasn’t said anything yet, but it must be some American.
Do you see, he has got a little American flag on the dessert dish, and he
has put pennies in the music box three times, once to play the
‘Star-spangled Banner,’ then a Sousa march, and then the ‘Star-spangled
Banner’ again. It must be an American millionaire, and he’s evidently
got a very big price for it; he’s just beaming and chuckling with
satisfaction.”
“We must ask him who has bought it,” said Mrs. Nougat-Jones.
“Hush! no, don’t. Let’s buy some of his sketches, quick, before we are
supposed to know that he’s famous; otherwise he’ll be doubling the
prices. I am so glad he’s had a success at last. I always believed in
him, you know.”
For the sum of ten shillings each Miss Strubble acquired the drawings of
the camel dying in Upper Berkeley Street and of the giraffes quenching
their thirst in Trafalgar Square; at the same price Mrs. Nougat-Jones
secured the study of roosting sand-grouse. A more ambitious picture,
“Wolves and wapiti fighting on the steps of the Athenæum Club,” found a
purchaser at fifteen shillings.
“And now what are your plans?” asked a young man who contributed
occasional paragraphs to an artistic weekly.
“I go back to Stolpmünde as soon as the ship sails,” said the artist,
“and I do not return. Never.”
“But your work? Your career as painter?”
“Ah, there is nossing in it. One starves. Till to-day I have sold not
one of my sketches. To-night you have bought a few, because I am going
away from you, but at other times, not one.”
“But has not some American—?”
“Ah, the rich American,” chuckled the artist. “God be thanked. He dash
his car right into our herd of schwines as they were being driven out to
the fields. Many of our best schwines he killed, but he paid all
damages. He paid perhaps more than they were worth, many times more than
they would have fetched in the market after a month of fattening, but he
was in a hurry to get on to Dantzig. When one is in a hurry one must pay
what one is asked. God be thanked for rich Americans, who are always in
a hurry to get somewhere else. My father and mother, they have now so
plenty of money; they send me some to pay my debts and come home. I
start on Monday for Stolpmünde and I do not come back. Never.”
“But your picture, the hyænas?”
“No good. It is too big to carry to Stolpmünde. I burn it.”
In time he will be forgotten, but at present Knopfschrank is almost as
sore a subject as Sledonti with some of the frequenters of the Nuremberg
Restaurant, Owl Street, Soho.