Not the tousled, ill-clad Waller, the "Walrus" of former days--no one dared to call the painter by any such names since his picture took the Medaille d'Honneur at Paris--and not the slender, smooth-faced Simmons, who in the old days was content to take his chances of filling a vacancy at Wallack's or the Winter Garden, when some one of the regular orchestra was under the weather; but a sleek, prosperous, rotund Waller, with a bit of red in his button-hole, a wide expanse of shirt-front, and a waxed mustache; and a thoughtful, slightly bald, and well-dressed Simmons, with gold eyeglasses, and his hair worn long in his neck as befitted the leader of an orchestra whose concerts crowded the Academy to the doors.
These two arrivals nodded to Jack and Fred, Waller cursing the weather as he hung up his coat on a peg behind the door (unnecessary formalities of every kind, including the shaking of hands and asking after each other's health, were dispensed with by men who saw each other several times a day at their different haunts), and Simmons, without stopping to take off his wet coat, flung his hat on the divan, crossed the room, and seated himself at the piano.
"Went this way, Waller, didn't it?" said Simmons striking the keys, continuing the conversation the two had evidently had on the stairs. "Never heard Parepa in better voice. She filled every corner of the house. Crug told me he was up in Africa in the back row and never missed a note. Do you remember this?" and the musician's fingers again slipped over the keys, and one of the great singer's trills rippled through the room, to which Waller nodded approvingly, mopping his wet face with his handkerchief as he listened.
The opening and shutting of the door, the stamping of feet, the general imprecations hurled at the climate, and the scattering of wet snow and rain-drops about the entrance became constant. Crug bustled in--a short, thick-set, rosy-cheeked young fellow in a black mackintosh and a white silk muffler--a 'cellist of repute, who had spent two years at the conservatoire, and who had once played for Eugenie at one of her musicales at the Tuileries, a fact he never let you forget. And close behind him came Watson, the landscape-painter, who had had two pictures accepted by the Royal Academy--one of them hung on the line, a great honor for an American; and after them blue-eyed, round-faced Munson, a pupil of Kaulbach, and late from Munich; as well as Harry Stedman, Post, the art-critic, and one or two others.
Each man as he entered divested himself of his wet garments, warmed his hands at the blazing grate-fire, and, reaching over the long table, picked up a clay or corn-cob pipe, stuffing the bowl full of tobacco from a cracked Japanese pot that stood on the mantel.
Then striking a match he settled himself into the nearest chair, joining in the general talk or smoking quietly, listening to what was being said about him. Now and then one would walk to the window, raise the sash, uncork a bottle of beer where Fred had placed it, empty its contents into one of the mugs, and resume his seat--mug in one hand, pipe in the other.
Up to this time no work had been done, the courtesies of the club permitting none to begin until the member whose night it was had arrived.
As the half-hour slipped away the men began to grow restless.
"If it's Horn's night why the devil doesn't he come, Fred?" asked Waller, in a querulous tone. Although the great sheep-painter had lost his sobriquet since the old days, he had never parted with his right to growl.
"He'll be here," cried Simmons from his seat by the piano. His fingers were still rippling gently over the keys, although he had stopped once just long enough to strip off his wet overcoat. "I met him at Margaret Grant's this afternoon. She had a little tea."
"There every afternoon, isn't he, Simmons?" asked Munson, who was smoking quietly:
"Shouldn't wonder," came the response between the trills.
"How's that affair coming on?" came a voice out of the tobacco-smoke.
"Same old way," answered someone at the lower end of the table--"still waiting for the spondulix."
"Seen her last picture?" remarked Watson, knocking the ashes from his pipe. "The one she scooped the medal with?"
"Yes. Rouser, isn't it?" called out Waller.
"Best thing she has done yet. She's a great woman.
Hello! there he is! This is a pretty time for him to put in an appearance!"
The door opened and Oliver walked in, a wet umbrella in one hand, his coat-collar turned up, his mustache beaded with melted snow-drops.
"What's it doing outside, Ollie, raining cats and dogs?" Jack called out.
"No, going to clear up. It's stopped snowing and getting colder. Oh, what a night! I love a storm like this, it sets my blood tingling. Sorry to keep you waiting, gentlemen, but I couldn't help it. It won't make any difference; I can't begin, anyway. Bianchi won't be here for an hour. Just met him on the street --he's going to bring a guest, he says."
"Who's he going to bring?" shouted Simmons, who had risen from his seat at the piano, and was now sorting out some sheets of music that Fred had just laid on its top.
"He won't tell; says it's a surprise," answered Oliver, slipping off his coat.
"A surprise, is it?" grumbled Waller. "I'll bet it's some greasy foreigner." He had left Simmons's side and was now standing by the mantel, filling a pipe from the bowl. "Bianchi has always got a lot of cranks about him."
Oliver hung his wet coat among the row of garments lining the wall--he had come twice as far as the others--crowded his dripping umbrella into a broken Chinese jar that did duty as a rack, and, catching sight of the canvas, walked toward the easel holding the thirty by forty.
"Where did you get it, Freddie?" he said, putting his arms around the shoulders of his old chum and dragging him toward the easel for a closer inspection of the grain of the canvas.
"Snedecor's" "Just right, old man. Much obliged," and he felt the grain of the cloth with his thumb. "Got a ruff?" and he glanced about him. "Oh, yes; I see.
Thanks."
