Page images
PDF
EPUB

my leave, reflecting that here was a novel and extraordinary experience in the chase for prints. A journeyman painter, working for day wages, living in poverty over a small mean shop, with a collection of prints and drawings in his possession which could not be rivalled on the continent, which were worth thousands of dollars, and yet who would not part with one of them for money. Was this the expression of artistic love, or was it fear? My diagnosis was that this collection was associated with something undisclosed, probably with a crime.

For more than a year I heard nothing of this unique proprietor of artistic treasures. One evening toward the close of the year, a certain 24th of December, my door-bell was rung and I was informed that a man wished to see me who declined to give his name and for that reason was left standing in the hall. The gas was not yet lighted and in the gloom of approaching darkness I did not recognize him, but when he spoke I knew it was the fresco painter. He said he had brought something to show me. I invited him into a lighted room, where he laid a portfolio on the table, opened, took from it and spread out the four drawings I had selected, in the same condition as when I last saw them. He positively represented "the knight of the rueful countenance," as he told me of his errand. He had been working and saving for years, that he might at the coming Christmas make his wife a present of a savings-bank book with a certain sum to her credit. He could not quite make up the sum upon which he had set his heart. What should he do? Fail of his present or part with some of his heart treasures? Here was a divided duty, but rather than disappoint a faithful and hard

working wife he had decided to part with these drawings to one who would appreciate and preserve them. He had therefore brought them to me; he could not bargain about them. I could have them at my own price.

I mentally summed up the situation and the fellow's character thus: He was a first-class fraud; his whole story was false. He was selling stolen property, probably rifled from some foreign collection. Should I call a servant and order him kicked into the street; or should I offer him a small sum which the owner would willingly pay to redeem his property if he ever appeared?

I decided upon the latter course. I offered a sum so insignificant that I will not name it. He remonstrated like "Oliver asking for more," but I was flinty-hearted, although the sorrow of his parting from his treasures was almost enough to excite my compassion. But he took his money, left his drawings, and tore himself away.

Then the purchaser of the stolen goods had a short season of self-communion. Was he quite sure that he had not himself been sold? It would not be interesting to discover that the drawings themselves. were frauds. He gave them a searching investigation, and, while every indication favored their genuineness, he placed them in a drawer, never to be shown until some unchallenged authority had attested their authenticity.

Before the new year, the police reports one morning disclosed a true case of desertion and destitution. A fellow whose wife had supported both, by keeping a small shop, while she lay sick in bed had sold out the shop, taken every cent of money from the clothing

of his sick wife while she was sleeping, abandoned her in utter poverty, and absconded with a woman of no doubtful character, leaving his own creditors in the lurch. The wife had no relatives, for they were foreigners. She was starving. They lived at Bleecker Street, and the name of the rascal that of my fresco painter.

No. was

The wife was assisted by a small sum which the owner will have to pay if he redeems his property, and on my next visit to Paris the drawings were exbited to the experts in old drawings at the Louvre, who pronounced them all genuine. Rosa Bonheur solved all doubts of the drawing attributed to her by writing her artist autograph on its margin. The drawings were then framed and have ever since awaited the coming of their owners. As the leap of the boy from the sixth-story window uninjured was proved because the window "was still there!" so it may be said to any who question the foregoing account, "It is certainly true, for the drawings are there to prove it."

CHAPTER XXX.

SOME MEN WHOM I KNEW IN WASHINGTON DURING THE CIVIL WAR.

JAMES S. WADSWORTH.

IN an old note-book of 1864 I recently found this dispatch from Acquia Creek in May, 1864, the day of the month omitted:

"Wadsworth fell yesterday. He is in the hands of the enemy, either dead or mortally wounded."

I remember now the sharp pang of sorrow that went through my heart when this dispatch was laid on my table; for James S. Wadsworth was a lovable man, my model of the very best type of the citizen of a free republic. I first knew him in the Peace Conference. He was then in the prime of life, with a magnificent physique, an open, frank face, a kind heart, and a fearless soul. After our call upon President Buchanan, he regarded our mission in the Conference as ended. He said to James A. Seddon, of Virginia: "Why do you persist in your attempt to deceive the North? You secessionists mean fight! You will keep right on with your treasonable schemes until you either whip us or we discipline you. I shall stay here until Congress adjourns on the 3d of March, because I cannot honorably resign from the Conference. Then I shall go home and help my people to get ready for the war in which you slaveholders intend to involve the republic!"

After the Conference I heard no more of Wadsworth until, among the first of the seventy-five thousand, he appeared in Washington with a full regiment of his neighbors from the Genesee Valley. They came so promptly, it was said, because they were armed and clothed by Wadsworth himself. I met him frequently afterward, always busy in caring for his regiment. He was appointed military governor of the District. One day in November he called at the Register's office on business. He wore the common soldier's blue overcoat and cap; his heavy boots, worn outside of his trousers, had a rich covering of red Virginia mud, and no one would have suspected that he was the owner of half a county of the fertile lands of the Genesee Valley. He invited me to dine with him. He said the carriage road to the governor's residence was slightly out of repair, and he would send saddle-horses for myself and a few other guests. I accepted the invitation.

On the day appointed the horses came with two orderlies. They were splendid animals or they could not have carried us through that bottomless mud from the end of the Long Bridge to our destination. The governor's residence was just such a tent as ten thousand soldiers in the same camp were provided with, only it was of a larger size. Our dinner had just the same material and number of courses as the dinner of these soldiers. Even the moderate quantity of excellent "old Jamaica" on our table was furnished to any soldier who really needed it. I have eaten many dinners and been made very miserable by some of them, but the experiences and memories of that one were and still are delightful. It was not difficult to understand why Wadsworth (he was then

« PreviousContinue »