“Now, does this satisfy you, Mr. Dodd?” he inquired, as soon as I had explained to him the main features of the design.

“Well,” I said, “the fellows seem to think it’s not a bad bonne femme for a beginner.  I don’t think it’s entirely bad myself.  Here is the best point; it builds up best from here.  No, it seems to me it has a kind of merit,” I admitted; “but I mean to do better.”

“Ah, that’s the word!” cried Pinkerton.  “There’s the word I love!” and he scribbled in his pad.

“What in creation ails you?” I inquired.  “It’s the most commonplace expression in the English language.”

“Better and better!” chuckled Pinkerton.  “The unconsciousness of genius.  Lord, but this is coming in beautiful!” and he scribbled again.

“If you’re going to be fulsome,” said I, “I’ll close the place of entertainment.”  And I threatened to replace the veil upon the Genius.

“No, no,” said he.  “Don’t be in a hurry.  Give me a point or two.  Show me what’s particularly good.”

“I would rather you found that out for yourself,” said I.

“The trouble is,” said he, “that I’ve never turned my attention to sculpture, beyond, of course, admiring it, as everybody must who has a soul.  So do just be a good fellow, and explain to me what you like in it, and what you tried for, and where the merit comes in.  It’ll be all education for me.”

“Well, in sculpture, you see, the first thing you have to consider is the masses.  It’s, after all, a kind of architecture,” I began, and delivered a lecture on that branch of art, with illustrations from my own masterpiece there present, all of which, if you don’t mind, or whether you mind or not, I mean to conscientiously omit.  Pinkerton listened with a fiery interest, questioned me with a certain uncultivated shrewdness, and continued to scratch down notes, and tear fresh sheets from his pad.  I found it inspiring to have my words thus taken down like a professor’s lecture; and having had no previous experience of the press, I was unaware that they were all being taken down wrong.  For the same reason (incredible as it must appear in an American) I never entertained the least suspicion that they were destined to be dished up with a sauce of penny-a-lining gossip; and myself, my person, and my works of art butchered to make a holiday for the readers of a Sunday paper.  Night had fallen over the Genius of Muskegon before the issue of my theoretic eloquence was stayed, nor did I separate from my new friend without an appointment for the morrow.

I was indeed greatly taken with this first view of my countryman, and continued, on further acquaintance, to be interested, amused, and attracted by him in about equal proportions.  I must not say he had a fault, not only because my mouth is sealed by gratitude, but because those he had sprang merely from his education, and you could see he had cultivated and improved them like virtues.  For all that, I can never deny he was a troublous friend to me, and the trouble began early.