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QUESTION OF POLITENESS.—­Except in the case of a man’s father having been “a big gun” at any time, to call anyone “a Son of a Gun,” has hitherto been considered a gross insult.  Is it equally insulting to speak of a Lady as “a Daughter of a Canon?”

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AN EMPTY TRIUMPH.

(A Story of Show Sunday.)

It was Show Sunday; lovers of Art were streaming in and out of every Studio they could hunt up, fired with a laudable ambition to break the record by the number they visited in the hours between luncheon and dusk.

[Illustration]

The residence of so rising a painter as TINTORETTO TICKLER was naturally a place in which no person of any self-respect would neglect to be seen; and on this particular afternoon the entrance-hall, sitting-rooms, and studio were simply choked with an eager throng of friends, acquaintances, and utter strangers; for TINTORETTO’S lavish hospitality was well known, and no expense had been spared to give his guests as favourable an impression of his talent as possible.  A couple of knights, clad in complete steel—­the local greengrocer and an Italian model—­took the guests’ hats, and announced their names; there were daffodils and azaleas in profusion; the Red Roumanians performed national airs in the studio-gallery; Italian mandolinists sang and strummed on the staircase, and, in the dining-room, trim maid-servants, in becoming white caps and streamers, dispensed coffee, claret-cup, and ices to a swarm of well-conducted social locusts.

Just outside his painting-room stood TINTORETTO TICKLER, at the receipt of compliment, which was abundantly and cheerfully paid.  Indeed, the torrent of congratulation and delicately-expressed eulogy was almost overwhelming.  One lovely and enthusiastic person told him that the sight of his “Dryad Disturbing a Beanfeast” had just marked an epoch in her mental development, and that she considered it quite the supreme achievement of the Art of the Century.  A ponderous man in spectacles, whom TICKLER had no recollection of having ever met before in his life, encouraged him by his solemn assurance that his “Jews Sitting in a Dentist’s Waiting-room, in the reign of King John,” was perfectly marvellous in its realism and historical accuracy, and that it ought to become the property of the Nation; while an elderly lady, in furs and a crimped front, declared that the pathos of his nursery subject—­a child endeavouring to induce a mechanical rabbit to share its bread-and-milk—­was sending her home with tears in her eyes.  Some talked learnedly of his “values,” his “atmosphere,” and the subtlety of his modelling; all agreed that he had surpassed himself and every living artist by his last year’s work, and no one made any mistake about the nature of his subjects, perhaps because—­in consideration for the necessities of the British Art-patron—­they had been fully announced and described in the artistic notes of several Sunday papers.