it is impossible to flatter it--you must either change it into a

fancy nose, or resignedly acquiesce in it. When a man has no
perceptible eyelids, and when his eyes globularly project so far

out of his head, that you expect to have to pick them up for him
whenever you see him lean forward, how are mortal fingers and

bushes to diffuse the right complimentary expression over them?
You must either do them the most hideous and complete justice, or

give them up altogether. The late Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A.,
was undoubtedly the most artful and uncompromising flatterer that

ever smoothed out all the natural characteristic blemishes from a
sitter's face; but even that accomplishedparasite would have

found Mr. Batterbury too much for him, and would have been
driven, for the first time in his practice of art, to the

uncustomary and uncourtly resource of absolutelypainting a
genuinelikeness.

As for me, I put my trust in Lady Malkinshaw's power of living,
and portrayed the face of Mr. Batterbury in all its native

horror. At the same time, I sensibly guarded against even the
most improbable accidents, by making him pay me the fifty pounds

as we went on, by installments. We had ten sittings. Each one of
them began with a message from Mr. Batterbury, giving me

Annabella's love and apologies for not being able to come and see
me. Each one of them ended with an argument between Mr.

Batterbury and me relative to the transfer of five pounds from
his pocket to mine. I came off victorious on every

occasion--being backed by the noble behavior of Lady Malkinshaw,
who abstained from tumb ling down, and who ate and drank, and

slept and grew lusty, for three weeks together. Venerable woman!
She put fifty pounds into my pocket. I shall think of her with

gratitude and respect to the end of my days.
One morning, while I was sitting before my completed portrait,

inwardly shuddering over the ugliness of it, a suffocating smell
of musk was wafted into the studio; it was followed by a sound of

rustling garments; and that again was succeeded by the personal
appearance of my affectionate sister, with her husband at her

heels. Annabella had got to the end of her stock of apologies,
and had come to see me.

She put her handkerchief to her nose the moment she entered the
room.

"How do you do, Frank? Don't kiss me: you smell of paint, and I
can't bear it."

I felt a similar antipathy to the smell of musk, and had not the
slightest intention of kissing her; but I was too gallant a man

to say so; and I only begged her to favor me by looking at her
husband's portrait.

Annabella glanced all round the room, with her handkerchief still
at her nose, and gathered her magnificent silk dress close about

her superb figure with her disengaged hand.
"What a horrid place!" she said faintly behind her handkerchief.

"Can't you take some of the paint away? I'm sure there's oil on
the floor. How am I to get past that nasty table with the palette

on it? Why can't you bring the picture down to the carriage,
Frank?"

Advancing a few steps, and looking suspiciously about her while
she spoke, her eyes fell on the chimney-piece. An eau-de-Cologne

bottle stood upon it, which she took up immediately with a
languishing sigh.

It contained turpentine for washing brushes in. Before I could
warn her, she had sprinkled herself absently with half the

contents of the bottle. In spite of all the musk that now filled
the room, the turpentine betrayed itself almost as soon as I

cried "Stop!" Annabella, with a shriek of disgust, flung the
bottle furiously into the fireplace. Fortunately it was

summer-time, or I might have had to echo the shriek with a cry of
"Fire!"

"You wretch! you brute! you low, mischievous, swindling
blackguard!" cried my amiable sister, shaking her skirts with all

her might, "you have done this on purpose! Don't tell me! I know
you have. What do you mean by pestering me to come to this

dog-kennel of a place?" she continued, turning fiercely upon the
partner of her existence and legitimatereceptacle of all her

superfluous wrath. "What do you mean by bringing me here, to see
how you have been swindled? Yes, sir, swindled! He has no more

idea of painting than you have. He has cheated you out of your
money. If he was starving tomorrow he would be the last man in

England to make away with himself--he is too great a wretch--he
is too vicious--he is too lost to all sense of respectability--he

is too much of a discredit to his family. Take me away! Give me
your arm directly! I told you not to go near him from the first.

This is what comes of your horridfondness for money. Suppose
Lady Malkinshaw does outlive him; suppose I do lose my legacy.

What is three thousand pounds to you? My dress is ruined. My
shawl's spoiled. _He_ die! If the old woman lives to the age of

Methuselah, he won't die. Give me your arm. No! Go to my father.
I want medical advice. My nerves are torn to pieces. I m giddy,

faint, sick--SICK, Mr. Batterbury!"
Here she became hysterical, and vanished, leaving a mixed odor of

musk and turpentine behind her, which preserved the memory of her
visit for nearly a week afterward.

"Another scene in the drama of my life seems likely to close in
before long," thought I. "No chance now of getting my amiable

sister to patronize" target="_blank" title="vt.庇护；保护；赞助">patronize struggling genius. Do I know of anybody else
who will sit to me? No, not a soul. Having thus no portraits of

other people to paint, what is it my duty, as a neglected artist,
to do next? Clearly to take a portrait of myself."

I did so, making my own likeness quite a pleasant relief to the
ugliness of my brother-in-law's. It was my intention to send both

portraits to the Royal Academy Exhibition, to get custom, and
show the public generally what I could do. I knew the institution

with which I had to deal, and called my own likeness, Portrait of
a Nobleman.

That dexterous appeal to the tenderest feelings of my
distinguished countrymen very nearly succeeded. The portrait of

Mr. Batterbury (much the more carefully-painted picture of the
two) was summarily turned out. The Portrait of a Nobleman was

politely reserved to be hung up, if the Royal Academicians could
possibly find room for it. They could not. So that picture also

vanished back into the obscurity of the artist's easel. Weak and
well-meaning people would have desponded under these

circumstances; but your genuine Rogue is a man of elastic
temperament, not easily compressible under any pressure of

disaster. I sent the portrait of Mr. Batterbury to the house of
that distinguishedpatron, and the Portrait of a Nobleman to the

Pawnbroker's. After this I had plenty of elbow-room in the
studio, and could walk up and down briskly, smoking my pipe, and

thinking about what I should do next.
I had observed that the generous friend and vagabond brother

artist, whose lodger I now was, never seemed to be in absolute
want of money; and yet the walls of his studio informed me that

nobody bought his pictures. There hung all his great works,
rejected by the Royal Academy, and neglected by the patrons of

Art; and there, nevertheless, was he, blithely plying the brush;
not rich, it is true, but certainly never without money enough in

his pocket for the supply of all his modest wants. Where did he
find his resources? I determined to ask him the question the very

next time he came to the studio.
"Dick," I said (we called each other by our Christian names),

"where do you get your money?"
"Frank," he answered, "what makes you ask that question?"

"Necessity," I proceeded. "My stock of money is decreasing, and I
don't know how to replenish it. My pictures have been turned out