It's interesting."
"Yes, and so are the artists. They are perfectly honest men, and sincere. And the old sailor-man is full of sound religion, and is as devoted a student of the Bible and misquoter of it as you can find anywhere. I don't know a better man or kinder hearted old soul than Saltmarsh, although he does swear a little, sometimes."
"He seems to be perfect. I want to know him, Barrow."
"You'll have the chance. I guess I hear them coming, now. We'll draw them out on their art, if you like."
The artists arrived and shook hands with great heartiness. The German was forty and a little fleshy, with a shiny bald head and a kindly face and deferential manner. Capt. Saltmarsh was sixty, tall, erect, powerfully built, with coal-black hair and whiskers, and he had a well tanned complexion, and a gait and countenance that were full of command, confidence and decision. His horny hands and wrists were covered with tattoo-marks, and when his lips parted, his teeth showed up white and blemishless. His voice was the effortless deep bass of a church organ, and would disturb the tranquility of a gas flame fifty yards away.
"They're wonderful pictures," said Barrow. "We've been examining them."
"It is very bleasant dot you like dem," said Handel, the German, greatly pleased. "Und you, Herr Tracy, you haf peen bleased mit dem too, alretty?"
"I can honestly say I have never seen anything just like them before."
"Schon!" cried the German, delighted. "You hear, Gaptain? Here is a chentleman, yes, vot abbreviate unser aart."
The captain was charmed, and said:
"Well, sir, we're thankful for a compliment yet, though they're not as scarce now as they used to be before we made a reputation."
"Getting the reputation is the up-hill time in most things, captain."
"It's so. It ain't enough to know how to reef a gasket, you got to make the mate know you know it. That's reputation. The good word, said at the right time, that's the word that makes us; and evil be to him that evil thinks, as Isaiah says."
"It's very relevant, and hits the point exactly," said Tracy.
"Where did you study art, Captain?"
"I haven't studied; it's a natural gift."
"He is born mit dose cannon in him. He tondt haf to do noding, his chenius do all de vork. Of he is asleep, and take a pencil in his hand, out come a cannon. Py crashus, of he could do a clavier, of he could do a guitar, of he could do a vashtub, it is a fortune, heiliger Yohanniss it is yoost a fortune!"
"Well, it is an immense pity that the business is hindered and limited in this unfortunate way."
The captain grew a trifle excited, himself, now:
"You've said it, Mr. Tracy!--Hindered? well, I should say so. Why, look here. This fellow here, No. 11, he's a hackman,--a flourishing hackman, I may say. He wants his hack in this picture. Wants it where the cannon is. I got around that difficulty, by telling him the cannon's our trademark, so to speak-proves that the picture's our work, and I was afraid if we left it out people wouldn't know for certain if it was a Saltmarsh--Handel--now you wouldn't yourself--"
"What, Captain? You wrong yourself, indeed you do. Anyone who has once seen a genuine Saltmarsh-Handel is safe from imposture forever. Strip it, flay it, skin it out of every detail but the bare color and expression, and that man will still recognize it--still stop to worship--"
"Oh, how it makes me feel to hear dose oxpressions!--"
--"still say to himself again as he had, said a hundred times before, the art of the Saltmarsh-Handel is an art apart, there is nothing in the heavens above or in the earth beneath that resembles it,--"
"Py chiminy, nur horen Sie einmal! In my life day haf I never heard so brecious worts."
"So I talked him out of the hack, Mr. Tracy, and he let up on that, and said put in a hearse, then--because he's chief mate of a hearse but don't own it--stands a watch for wages, you know. But I can't do a hearse any more than I can a hack; so here we are--becalmed, you see.