“Yes, you do, sir,” insisted the dragoon.  “He’s a war-horse, I tell you, for he’d rather die than run!”

* * * * *

“Of course you don’t know what fear is,” observed Mortimer Menpes.

“Ah, yes, I do!” Whistler answered.  “I should hate, for example, to be standing opposite a man who was a better shot than I, far away out in the forest, in the bleak, cold, early morning.  Fancy me, the master, standing out in the open as a target to be shot at.  Pshaw!  It would be foolish and inartistic.  I never mind calling a man out; but I always have the sense to know he is not likely to come.”

* * * * *

Mr. Howard Mansfield relates that while in London in the summer of 1900 with Mr. Whistler, reference was one day made to West Point.  He broke at once into enthusiastic praise of that institution, declaring that there was no finer institution in the world, and adding that next to it came the Naval Academy at Annapolis.  Then he went on to say:  “What was it which really saved you in your late deplorable war with the politest nation of Europe but the bearing of your naval gentlemen?  After the affair in that sea—­what’s its name?—­off the island of Cuba, when dear old Admiral Cervera was fished up like a dollop of cotton out of an ink-pot and was received on one of your ships with all the honors due to his rank, the officers all saluting and the crew manning the yards, as it were—­only they haven’t any yards now—­but lined up in quite the proper way—­why, it was splendid, just splendid!”

* * * * *

Dining one night at a house where there were a number of his pictures about the room, he could give attention to nothing but his own work.  When he left he begged that one painting be sent to his studio to be revarnished.  The unsuspecting hostess complied.  Once delivered, she could not get it back.  Finally she wrote:  “I can live no longer without my beautiful picture, and I am sending to have it taken away.”

“Isn’t it appalling?” he cried to Menpes.  “Just think of it!  Ten years ago this woman bought my picture for a ridiculously small sum, a mere bagatelle, a few pounds; she has had the privilege of living with this masterpiece for ten whole years, and now she has the presumption to ask for it back again.  Pshaw!  The thing’s unspeakable!”

* * * * *

“What a series of accidents!” was his comment on a row of Turners at the National Gallery.

* * * * *

On another occasion, when he arrived at his host’s house two hours after the time set for dining, he found the meal well under way.  “How extraordinary!” he exclaimed to the amazed company.

“Really, I should think you could have waited a bit.  Why, you’re just like a lot of pigs with your eating!”

* * * * *