* * * * *

A pupil told him proudly she had studied with Bouguereau.

“Bouguereau!  Bouguereau!  Who is Bouguereau?”

* * * * *

One young lady in the class offended him.  She received a polite note, signed with a neat butterfly, requesting her not to attend further.  “It was worth being expelled to get the note,” she said.  Whistler heard of the comment.

“Well, they’ll all have a note some day,” he observed.  His retirement soon followed.

* * * * *

H. Villiers Barnett, editor of the Continental Weekly, when in the employ of the Magazine of Art visited the Dowdeswell Gallery at a press view of the Venice pastels.  He alone of the critics developed some interest, and soon found himself alone with Whistler.

“I beg your pardon,” said the latter, “but do you represent a religious journal?”

“No,” Barnett replied, jokingly, “mine is an out-and-out sporting paper!”

“Oh,” said Whistler, “that accounts for it.”

“Accounts for what?”

“Well, you see,” said Whistler, with an exquisite sneer, “I have been watching you gentlemen of the press all morning.  You are the only one in the whole lot who seems to find anything here worth looking at, and you have been taking such very serious interest that I was certain you must be representing some church paper.”

“Mr. Whistler,” retorted Barnett, “make your mind easy.  There is nothing ecclesiastical about me nor the publication I have the honor to represent; but all the same, for you this is the day of judgment!”

“I wish you good morning,” rejoined the painter, pertly.

* * * * *

His “artistic” make-up of flat-brimmed hat, lemon-colored vest, curls, eyeglass, and beribboned cane sometimes upset the cockney crowd.  R.A.M.  Stevenson, cousin of Robert Louis, was working in his studio one day when the bell rang violently.  He ran to the door just in time to rescue the symphony into which Whistler had turned himself from a growling mob.

“For God’s sake, Stevenson,” said Whistler, “save me from these howling brutes!”

He went home in a cab with all his trimmings.

* * * * *

Harper Pennington has revealed to us the origin of the “standing-room only” joke.  It appears that there was hardly ever any furniture in Whistler’s house.  He was peculiarly parsimonious in the matter of chairs.  This led to a remark of Corny Grain’s which became famous.

“Ah, Jimmy!  Glad to see you playing to such a full house!” said Dick (Corny) Grain when shaking hands before a Sunday luncheon, while glaring around the studio with his large, protruding eyes, in search of something to sit on.

“What do you mean?” asked Whistler.

“Standing-room only,” replied the actor.