Children of the Whirlwind [2]
turned back to Maggie. "I say, sister, how about robing yourself in your raiment of joy and coming with yours truly to a palace of jazz, there to dine and show the populace what real dancing is?"
"Can't, Barney. Mr. Hunt"--the name given the painter at his original christening--"asked the Duchess and me to have dinner up here. He's to cook it himself."
"For your sake I hope he cooks better than he paints." And sliding down in his chair until he rested upon a more comfortable vertebra, the elegant Barney lit a monogrammed cigarette, and with idle patience swung his bamboo stick.
"You're half an hour late, Maggie," Hunt began at her again in his rumbling voice. "Can't stand for such a waste of my time!"
"How about my time?" retorted Maggie, who indeed had a grievance. "I was supposed to have the day off, but instead I had to carry that tray of cigarettes around till the last person in the Ritzmore had finished lunch. Anyhow," she added, "I don't see that your time's worth so much when you spend it on such painty messes as these."
"It's not up to you to tell me what my time's worth!" retorted Hunt. "I pay you--that's enough for you!... Because you weren't on time, I stuck Old Jimmie out there to finish off this picture. I'll be through with the old cut-throat in ten minutes. Be ready to take his place."
"All right," said Maggie sulkily.
For all his roaring she was not much afraid of the painter. While his brushes flicked at, and streaked across, the canvas she stood idly watching him. He was in paint-smeared, baggy trousers and a soft shirt whose open collar gave a glimpse of a deep chest matted with hair and whose rolled-up sleeves revealed forearms that seemed absurdly large to be fiddling with those slender sticks. A crowbar would have seemed more in harmony. He was unromantically old--all of thirty-five Maggie guessed; and with his square, rough-hewn face and tousled, reddish hair he was decidedly ugly. But for the fact that he really did work-- though of course his work was foolish--and the fact that he paid his way--he bought little, but no one could beat him by so much as a penny in a bargain, not even the Duchess--Maggie might have considered him as one of the many bums who floated purposelessly through that drab region.
Also, had there not been so many queer people coming and going in this neighborhood--Eads Howe, the hobo millionaire, settlement workers, people who had grown rich and old in their business and preferred to live near it--Maggie might have regarded Hunt with more curiosity, and even with suspicion; but down here one accepted queer people as a matter of course, the only fear being that secretly they might be police or government agents, which Maggie and the others knew very well Hunt was not. When Hunt had rented this attic as a studio they had accepted his explanation that he had taken it because it was cheap and he could afford to pay no more. Likewise they had accepted his explanation that he was a mechanic by trade who had roughed it all over the world and was possessed with an itch for painting, that lately he had worked in various garages, that it was his habit to hoard his money till he got a bit ahead and then go off on a painting spree. All these admissions were indubitably plausible, for his paintings seemed the unmistakable handiwork of an irresponsible, hard- fisted motor mechanic.
Maggie shifted to her other foot and glanced casually at the canvases which leaned against the walls of the shabby studio. There was the Duchess: incredibly old, the face a web of wrinkles, the lips indrawn over toothless and shrunken gums. the nose a thin, curved beak, the eyes deep-set, gleaming, inscrutable, watching; and drawn tight over the hair--even Maggie did not know whether that hair was a wig or the Duchess's--the faded Oriental shawl which was fastened beneath her chin and which fell over her thin, bent chest. There was O'Flaherty, the good-natured policeman on the beat. There was the old watchmaker next door. There was Black Hurley, the notorious gang leader, who sometimes
"Can't, Barney. Mr. Hunt"--the name given the painter at his original christening--"asked the Duchess and me to have dinner up here. He's to cook it himself."
"For your sake I hope he cooks better than he paints." And sliding down in his chair until he rested upon a more comfortable vertebra, the elegant Barney lit a monogrammed cigarette, and with idle patience swung his bamboo stick.
"You're half an hour late, Maggie," Hunt began at her again in his rumbling voice. "Can't stand for such a waste of my time!"
"How about my time?" retorted Maggie, who indeed had a grievance. "I was supposed to have the day off, but instead I had to carry that tray of cigarettes around till the last person in the Ritzmore had finished lunch. Anyhow," she added, "I don't see that your time's worth so much when you spend it on such painty messes as these."
"It's not up to you to tell me what my time's worth!" retorted Hunt. "I pay you--that's enough for you!... Because you weren't on time, I stuck Old Jimmie out there to finish off this picture. I'll be through with the old cut-throat in ten minutes. Be ready to take his place."
"All right," said Maggie sulkily.
For all his roaring she was not much afraid of the painter. While his brushes flicked at, and streaked across, the canvas she stood idly watching him. He was in paint-smeared, baggy trousers and a soft shirt whose open collar gave a glimpse of a deep chest matted with hair and whose rolled-up sleeves revealed forearms that seemed absurdly large to be fiddling with those slender sticks. A crowbar would have seemed more in harmony. He was unromantically old--all of thirty-five Maggie guessed; and with his square, rough-hewn face and tousled, reddish hair he was decidedly ugly. But for the fact that he really did work-- though of course his work was foolish--and the fact that he paid his way--he bought little, but no one could beat him by so much as a penny in a bargain, not even the Duchess--Maggie might have considered him as one of the many bums who floated purposelessly through that drab region.
Also, had there not been so many queer people coming and going in this neighborhood--Eads Howe, the hobo millionaire, settlement workers, people who had grown rich and old in their business and preferred to live near it--Maggie might have regarded Hunt with more curiosity, and even with suspicion; but down here one accepted queer people as a matter of course, the only fear being that secretly they might be police or government agents, which Maggie and the others knew very well Hunt was not. When Hunt had rented this attic as a studio they had accepted his explanation that he had taken it because it was cheap and he could afford to pay no more. Likewise they had accepted his explanation that he was a mechanic by trade who had roughed it all over the world and was possessed with an itch for painting, that lately he had worked in various garages, that it was his habit to hoard his money till he got a bit ahead and then go off on a painting spree. All these admissions were indubitably plausible, for his paintings seemed the unmistakable handiwork of an irresponsible, hard- fisted motor mechanic.
Maggie shifted to her other foot and glanced casually at the canvases which leaned against the walls of the shabby studio. There was the Duchess: incredibly old, the face a web of wrinkles, the lips indrawn over toothless and shrunken gums. the nose a thin, curved beak, the eyes deep-set, gleaming, inscrutable, watching; and drawn tight over the hair--even Maggie did not know whether that hair was a wig or the Duchess's--the faded Oriental shawl which was fastened beneath her chin and which fell over her thin, bent chest. There was O'Flaherty, the good-natured policeman on the beat. There was the old watchmaker next door. There was Black Hurley, the notorious gang leader, who sometimes