In the Quarter | Page 3

bust of Pallas

without being caught. He tried it, but his master was too quick for him,
and foiled, he lay sullenly in Gethryn's hands, his two long claws
projecting helplessly between the brown fists of his master.
"Oh, you fiend!" muttered Rex, taking him toward a wicker basket,
which he hated. "Solitary confinement for you, my boy."
"Double, double, toil and trouble," croaked the parrot.
Gethryn started nervously and shut him inside the cage, a regal gilt
structure with "Shakespeare" printed over the door. Then, replacing the
agitated Gummidge on her panther skin, he sat down once more and
lighted another cigarette.
His picture. He could think of nothing else. It was a serious matter with
Gethryn. Admitted to the Salon meant three more years' study in Paris.
Failure, and back he must go to New York.
The personal income of Reginald Gethryn amounted to the magnificent
sum of two hundred and fifty dollars. To this, his aunt, Miss Celestia
Gethryn, added nine hundred and fifty dollars more. This gave him a
sum of twelve hundred dollars a year to live on and study in Paris. It
was not a large sum, but it was princely when compared to the amount
on which many a talented fellow subsists, spending his best years in a
foul atmosphere of paint and tobacco, ill fed, ill clothed, scarcely
warmed at all, often sick in mind and body, attaining his first scant
measure of success just as his overtaxed powers give way.
Gethryn's aunt, his only surviving relative, had recently written him one
of her ponderous letters. He took it from his pocket and began to read it
again, for the fourth time.
You have now been in Paris three years, and as yet I have seen no
results. You should be earning your own living, but instead you are still
dependent upon me. You are welcome to all the assistance I can give
you, in reason, but I expect that you will have something to show for all
the money I expend upon you. Why are you not making a handsome
income and a splendid reputation, like Mr Spinder?

The artist named was thirty-five and had been in Paris fifteen years.
Gethryn was twenty-two and had been studying three years.
Why are you not doing beautiful things, like Mr Mousely? I'm told he
gets a thousand dollars for a little sketch.
Rex groaned. Mr Mousely could neither draw nor paint, but he made
stories of babies' deathbeds on squares of canvas with china angels
solidly suspended from the ceiling of the nursery, pointing upward, and
he gave them titles out of the hymnbook, which caused them to be
bought with eagerness by all the members of the congregation to which
his family belonged.
The letter proceeded:
I am told by many reliable persons that three years abroad is more than
enough for a thorough art education. If no results are attained at the end
of that time, there is only one of two conclusions to be drawn. Either
you have no talent, or you are wasting your time. I shall wait until the
next Salon before I come to a decision. If then you have a picture
accepted and if it shows no trace of the immorality which is rife in
Paris, I will continue your allowance for three years more; this,
however, on condition that you have a picture in the Salon each year. If
you fail again this year, I shall insist upon your coming home at once.
Why Gethryn should want to read this letter four times, when one
perusal of it had been more than enough, no one, least of all himself,
could have told. He sat now crushing it in is hand, tasting all the
bitterness that is stored up for a sensitive artist tied by fate to an
omniscient Philistine who feeds his body with bread and his soul with
instruction about art and behavior.
Presently he mastered the black mood which came near being too much
for him, his face cleared and he leaned back, quietly smoking. From the
rug rose a muffled rumbling where Mrs Gummidge dozed in peace.
The clock ticked sharply. A mouse dropped silently from the window
curtain and scuttled away unmarked.

The pups lay in a soft heap. The parrot no longer hung head downward,
but rested in his cage in a normal position, one eye fixed steadily on
Gethryn, the other sheathed in a bluish-white eyelid, every wrinkle of
which spoke scorn of men and things.
For some time Gethryn had been half-conscious of a piano sounding on
the floor below. It suddenly struck him now that the apartment under
his, which had been long vacant, must have found an occupant.
"Idiots!" he grumbled. "Playing at midnight! That will have to stop.