“It must be a wonderful spot, Giotto,” said he; “and, if I were richer, just now we’d go down together, and paint sunsets, and see your friends.” And he walked up and down the studio, revolving his new caprice, whilst Jan tried to think if any thing were likely to bring money into his master’s pocket before long. Suddenly the artist seized a sketch that was lying near, and, turning it over, began one on the other side, questioning Jan as he drew. “What do old country wives dress in down yonder?—What did you wear in the mill?—Where does the light come from in a round-house,” etc.
Presently he flung it to Jan, and, in answer to the boy’s cry of admiration, growled, “Ay, ay. You must do what _you_ can now, for every after-touch of mine will spoil it. There are hundreds of men, Giotto, whose sketches are good, and their paintings daubs. But it is only the sketches of great men that sell. The public likes canvas and linseed oil for its money, where small reputations are concerned.”
The sketch was of a peep into the round-house. Jan, toll-dish in hand, with a quaint business gravity, was met by a dame who was just raising her old back after letting down her sack of gleanings, with garrulous good-humor in her blinking eyes and withered face.
“Chiaroscuro good,” dictated the painter; “execution sketchy; coloring quiet, to be in keeping with the place and subject, but pure. You know the scene better than I, so work away, Giotto. Motto—’Will ye pay or toll it, mother?’ Price twenty-five guineas. Take it to What’s-his-name’s, and if it sells we’ll go to Arcadia, Giotto mio! The very thought of those breezes is as quinine to my languid faculties!”
Jan worked hard at the new “pot boiler.” The artist painted the boy’s figure himself, and Jan did most of the rest. The bow-legged boy stooped in a petticoat as a model for the old woman, murmuring at intervals, “Oh, my, here _is_ a game!” and, when the painter had left the room, his grave speculations as to whether the withered face of the dame were a good likeness of his own chubby cheeks made Jan laugh till he could hardly hold his palette. It was done at last, and Jan took it to the picture-dealer’s.
The poor boy could hardly keep out of the street where the picture-dealer lived. One afternoon, as he was hanging about the window, the business gentleman came by and asked kindly after his welfare. Jan was half ashamed of the hope with which he told the tale of the pot boiler.