“Oh, you’re all right, yet,” said Barrow.  “You see you’re not past amusement.”

The pictures were fearful, as to color, and atrocious as to drawing and expression; but the feature which squelched animosity and made them funny was a feature which could not achieve its full force in a single picture, but required the wonder-working assistance of repetition.  One loudly dressed mechanic in stately attitude, with his hand on a cannon, ashore, and a ship riding at anchor in the offing,—­this is merely odd; but when one sees the same cannon and the same ship in fourteen pictures in a row, and a different mechanic standing watch in each, the thing gets to be funny.

“Explain—­explain these aberrations,” said Tracy.

“Well, they are not the achievement of a single intellect, a single talent—­it takes two to do these miracles.  They are collaborations; the one artist does the figure, the other the accessories.  The figure-artist is a German shoemaker with an untaught passion for art, the other is a simple hearted old Yankee sailor-man whose possibilities are strictly limited to his ship, his cannon and his patch of petrified sea.  They work these things up from twenty-five-cent tintypes; they get six dollars apiece for them, and they can grind out a couple a day when they strike what they call a boost—­that is, an inspiration.”

“People actually pay money for these calumnies?”

“They actually do—­and quite willingly, too.  And these abortionists could double their trade and work the women in, if Capt.  Saltmarsh could whirl a horse in, or a piano, or a guitar, in place of his cannon.  The fact is, he fatigues the market with that cannon.  Even the male market, I mean.  These fourteen in the procession are not all satisfied.  One is an old “independent” fireman, and he wants an engine in place of the cannon; another is a mate of a tug, and wants a tug in place of the ship —­and so on, and so on.  But the captain can’t make a tug that is deceptive, and a fire engine is many flights beyond his power.”

“This is a most extraordinary form of robbery, I never have heard of anything like it.  It’s interesting.”

“Yes, and so are the artists.  They are perfectly honest men, and sincere.  And the old sailor-man is full of sound religion, and is as devoted a student of the Bible and misquoter of it as you can find anywhere.  I don’t know a better man or kinder hearted old soul than Saltmarsh, although he does swear a little, sometimes.”

“He seems to be perfect.  I want to know him, Barrow.”

“You’ll have the chance.  I guess I hear them coming, now.  We’ll draw them out on their art, if you like.”

The artists arrived and shook hands with great heartiness.  The German was forty and a little fleshy, with a shiny bald head and a kindly face and deferential manner.  Capt.  Saltmarsh was sixty, tall, erect, powerfully built, with coal-black hair and whiskers, and he had a well tanned complexion, and a gait and countenance that were full of command, confidence and decision.  His horny hands and wrists were covered with tattoo-marks, and when his lips parted, his teeth showed up white and blemishless.  His voice was the effortless deep bass of a church organ, and would disturb the tranquility of a gas flame fifty yards away.