Page:Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field.djvu/99

 THE LEFT HAND DIDN'T KNOW

"I saw your protégé in Paris—he is getting along finely with his painting," I told Mark, meeting him in the Strand, London.

"I do not know what you mean by protégé," he said evasively, "but I am glad to hear that the boy is progressing. Do you know," he added quickly, "I hold with that famous English letter-writer, whose name I forget, that an artist has brush and pencil and that the public will reward him as it sees fit."

Of course, Mark didn't "hold" anything of the sort. He had then supported that bright American boy in Paris for three years, giving him the best of teachers and advancing his chances in every way possible, but he resented my touching upon the subject. I suppose he would have cut me dead the next time we met, if I had reminded him of the colored boy whom he was seeing through college in the States. 95