Delphi Complete Works of Booth Tarkington (Illustrated), page 541
At times his employer took great pains to shed light upon the business; but at others he didn’t. Mr. Rumbin was at once the most copiously voluble and completely secretive man Howard had ever met. Miss Horne did the bookkeeping for Rumbin Galleries and sometimes worked long over ledgers; but the really important part of the business was obviously all in a section of Mr. Rumbin’s head that he kept locked up. Miss Horne was more helpful. She suggested books for Howard’s reading, and more than once, when he made bold to ask her, went with him to the Metropolitan Museum and other public galleries, on Sundays, talking informatively of the pictures; but there were times when the novice felt himself a misfit in his present calling.
He spoke gloomily to Miss Horne, one autumn morning. “I’m learning to be a good janitor,” he said, concluding operations with a dust pan and a floor mop. “But the minute Mr. Rumbin lets me out of these overalls I’m lost. What art reading I get a chance to do goes right out my other ear. I wonder Mr. Rumbin doesn’t fire me.”
“No.” Miss Horne was passing a soft feather duster over an old painting that stood before her on a chair; but she gave the discouraged assistant a twinkling brief side glance from nice grey eyes. “Large serious young gentlemen may be a little slow sometimes; but they inspire trustfulness, Mr. Cattlet. That’s useful. Mr. Rumbin knows very well that nobody would dream anything shady could ever be put over with your connivance.”
Howard’s color heightened, not because he took this as a tribute. “I see. You merely mean I’m dumb-looking.”
“I do not!” she protested, and had more color herself. “I only meant—”
“Never mind,” he said. “I’m surprised, though. I didn’t think Mr. Rumbin’d ever do anything at all shady.”
“Certainly he wouldn’t!” Georgina Horne returned loyally. “He’s absolutely straight about whatever he sells his clients; he’d be foolish if he weren’t. I meant you inspire confidence and that sometimes clients are nervous because they realize they know too little about old pictures. For that matter, though, when almost any picture’s several hundred years old, even the experts can get to quarreling over it.”
“I believe you!” the young man in overalls exclaimed. He looked at the aged painting she was softly dusting — partly-robed small figures on the edge of a dim river that was set into a bluish dark landscape under a stormy sky. “How could anybody tell who painted that, for instance?”
Miss Horne laughed. “Look at the tablet.” She moved aside so that Howard could read the name upon the short strip of thin gilt wood affixed to the base of the frame.
“Poussin,” he said, meditating. “Poussin. Let’s see if I can remember. Seventeenth Century French. Nicolas Poussin contemporary of Claude Gellée called Lorrain. Velásquez, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Vermeer, Rubens, Van Dyck, Claude le Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin all alive at the same time. Some modern French critics put Nicolas Poussin at the top, the most important of all. That must be a horribly expensive picture, Miss Horne.”
“Mr. Rumbin never tells me his prices beforehand,” Miss Horne said, and added, “He thoroughly knows what he’s about, though, when he’s handling old French pictures.”
She took the painting to the display window, set it upon a mound of green velvet and let the upper part of the frame rest against an iron support, so that the canvas, a little tilted back, faced the street. Then she turned to go to her desk at the rear of the shop; but paused upon hearing an exclamation from Howard.
“Golly! Somebody’s looking at it!”
An unusual thing had happened; a passer-by had stopped to gaze into Rumbin Galleries’ display window.
The interested person was tall, slim and swarthily handsome, though Howard Cattlet thought his Chaplin-Hitler moustache, mauve silk muffler and the rake of his hatbrim a little conspicuous.
“He’s a dealer,” Georgina Horne said, frowning slightly. “It’s Mr. Orcas. I don’t see what interests him in a Poussin; he’s not supposed to know much about French painters, new or old.”
Mr. Orcas, however, opened the door and came in.
“So our fat friend’s got hold of a Poussin, has he?” he said gayly to Miss Horne. “Well, well, well! He must be flush! No wonder — since he’s been selling pictures to such a plutocrat as Kingsford J. Hollins, Esquire!”
“I think Mr. Rumbin’s in the stock room if you wish to see him, Mr. Orcas.”
“No, no.” Mr. Orcas gracefully waved a pair of flat, never-worn suede gloves. “Not on business; I’m trotting right along.” He picked up from a Louis XV marquetry table a small casket of silver-gilt. “I just happened to see this little coffer through the window and thought for a moment it might be a German piece, Gothic.” He laughed. “Baroque! Better get my eyes examined, what?” He put down the casket and walked to the door. “Day, day!” he said, passing out to East Seventeenth Street. “Dearest love to our fat friend!”
He closed the door behind him gently; nevertheless, the action seemed to open another door at the rear of the shop as by some instantaneous mechanism. Mr. Rumbin, bright-eyed, came forth from the stock room rapidly.
“Didn’t I heard the woice o’ that damn Orcas?”
“Yes; just stayed a minute,” the secretary said. “Talked about the Poussin. Then pretended he’d mistaken the little baroque coffer for Gothic through the window; picked it up and looked at it.”
“He did?” Mr. Rumbin put his right forefinger upon the tip of his nose, kept it there for a moment — one of his gestures to signify penetrative thought. “That’s execkly his bum excuse for coming inside. What elst did Orcas—”
“He knows you’ve got Mr. Kingsford J. Hollins for a client,” Georgina said. “He—”
“Counts nothing,” Mr. Rumbin interrupted. “Proves he ain’t got no lead to him, elst he wouldn’t spoken about him.” He turned to his assistant, who was replacing the mop and dust pan in a cupboard. “Howie, you see it ain’t only the first step getting once holt of a client, because that’s comparative easy compared to chasing odda dealers off from him. Now show me you’re anyways some learning the business, Howie. Make me a guess really why Orcas comes in.”
“Sir?”
“Take it easy, Howie,” Mr. Rumbin said benevolently. “Putty soon comes to you the meaning of what I’m asking you.”
“Well, sir — since you’ve told me nobody clever ever lets you see what he’s really interested in, Mr. Orcas couldn’t be interested in the Poussin because that was the first thing he mentioned.”
“Wrong!” Mr. Rumbin exclaimed. “Most cases, yes; but not if it’s Orcas. He thinks if he mentions the Poussin I’ll think he ain’t thinking about it on account he does mention it to keep me from thinking he’s thinking about it, so I won’t.”
“Sir?”
“Take it easy, Howie,” Mr. Rumbin said again. “Afterwhiles it comes to you. It’s good, because not chumping at everything you don’t never over-chump yourself.” He smiled, nodded and spoke aside to Miss Horne, though without lowering his voice enough to be inaudible to Howard. “It’s good for anodda reason too, Georchie, also. If the boy gets too bright and his face’s expressions gets to showing it, he might lose that aristocratic don’t-know look that’s the most useful thing he’s got, togedda with his clothing.” Then he addressed both of his employees. “Orcas is crazy after French pictures; don’t know nothing about ’em. Wait a couple days, he’ll call me up and try to trade me for the Poussin maybe a Lawrence portrait that’ll turn out to be a Harlow. Got me, Howie?”
“Sir? You mean because Harlow was an imitator of Lawrence—”
“Listen hard!” Rumbin said. “Trading pictures — look out! You get a Tintoretto; no, it’s a Tintoretto the son, not Jacopo Robusti but Domenico. If it’s a Velásquez it’s a Mazo; if it’s a Wan Dyke it’s a Lely — even the Louvre’s got a Wan Dyke that’s a Lely. If it’s a Lely it’s a Wissing or a Hayls or a Beale or a Soest. If it’s a Blakelock or a Corot or a Jean François Millet or a Cézanne it’s a forchery from a forchery factory. If it’s a Bellini it comes from pupils; if it’s a Rembrandt it ain’t one, and if it’s a Giorgione it twice as much ain’t. What’s the answer?”
“Sir?”
“Eye!” Rumbin said. “You got to have a Eye. Cultiwate Eye, Howie. Got me?”
“Sir? You mean because so many pictures are copies or—”
“Listen some more intelligencely,” Rumbin said. “You don’t got to get the idea in the whole worlt there ain’t no aut’entic pictures. Stands to reason there’s got to be some, even if maybe not accordings to the experts. Don’t try for it now, Howie. It comes to you later. Go put on your cutaway suit. We got business.”
“Yes, sir.” Howard retired to the stock room, and Miss Horne looked at her employer inquiringly.
“Mr. Hollins is coming this morning?” she asked.
“No, not Mr. Kingsford J. Hollins; it’s his business partner, Mr. Milton Wilby. Mr. Milton Wilby, he lives since he got born in a nice old house from off Gramercy Park just a little piece distance. Promises Mr. Hollins and me he walks around here this morning, stops in, I can show him some paintings. Mr. Milton Wilby looks good, Georchie.”
“Are you going to try to sell him the Poussin?”
“No,” Rumbin said decisively. “One them foreground figures it’s a almost nude. Pagan subject, and Mr. Hollins tells me Mr. and Mrs. Milton Wilby they’re very strict old-fashion’ American rich people. Mr. Milton Wilby he’s over seventy years old; teaches Sunday-school since before he was twenty-one. Best I try on him subjects from religion; but on the odda hand Mr. Kingsford J. Hollins tells me Mr. Milton Wilby don’t like no primitives. Well, outside primitives, I got my early Nineteent’ Century French Academic Bathsheba Viewed by David.”
“I wouldn’t.” Miss Horne shook her head. “You say Mr. Wilby wouldn’t want a nude, and Bathsheba—”
“Yes, so she is,” Rumbin admitted. “You’re always right, Georchie. Well, we got one odda religious subject. That Follower of Boucher picture, La Femme de Potiphar—” He paused, frowning. “Yet it’s kind of a nude, too, though.”
“ ’Kind of’? Even more than Bathsheba, Mr. Rumbin.”
“Yes, so she is, Georchie. Nuder and Frencher, too. Wouldn’t do any for old-fashion’ American rich people.”
“Mr. Rumbin, aren’t you going to show him any portraits or landscapes?”
“A portrait, yes; that’s what I got to sell Mr. Wilby. Lentscapes Mr. Hollins tells me Mr. Wilby don’t like much, too; so I show him some first, to get him a little tired, yet not disgusted at me like the way Bathsheba or the Femme de Potiphar would maybe make him. Then I shoot him a portrait. Which one you say, Georchie?”
“Early American, I think, Mr. Rumbin. For instance—”
“Wait. I got it!” he interrupted. “Reverend Joel Feeney of Connecticut by John Wesley Jarvis. Jarvis he’s a putty good early Nineteent’ Century American painter; might get me a good pleasant price from Mr. Milton Wilby.” Mr. Rumbin looked at his watch. “Time to show Howie which pictures he’s got to carry into the galleries for the program. Keep a look out through the show window for Mr. Milton Wilby, Georchie. Send him nice glences out from your eyes if he comes before I’m beck to let him in. It all helps, Georchie.”
CHAPTER SIX
MISS HORNE LAUGHED; so did Mr. Rumbin. He returned to the stock room and she sat down at her desk; but now and then obediently looked up from her work to gaze toward the street. Thus she happened to be looking when an obviously conservative elderly couple — a withered grey gentleman and a plump silver-haired lady — paused upon the sidewalk to glance up at the gilt lettering on the window. Georgina Horne comprehended that Mr. Milton Wilby had brought his wife with him to look at pictures; but the nice glances out from Georgina’s eyes were not called upon. Mr. Rumbin just at that moment emerged from the stock room and he instantly hurried forward to admit the visitors himself.
Opening the door, he bowed again and again, spoke volubly of the honor being done him; all without thawing the coating of austere wealthy reserve that seemed to encase Mr. and Mrs. Wilby hereditarily. Both, pausing just inside the door, looked about the shop.
“I’ve never been in a place like this before,” Mrs. Wilby said. “Very odd things.” She addressed Rumbin guardedly. “Mr. Hollins has talked my husband into looking at some of your pictures; but the only place for one in our house is over our living-room fireplace, and we already have a beautiful picture there. It’s not loud, like most oil paintings, and’s by a very fine artist. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s called Ducks on a Pond.”
“Ducks?” Mr. Rumbin said in a small voice, and with a smile in which there appeared to be nothing except deference. “Ducks.” He seemed to ponder. “Ducks on a Pond. French maybe?”
“No,” Mrs. Wilby answered stiffly. “It is not. It was left me by my aunt, Mrs. George Penner Thompson, and she told me herself the artist was from Rhode Island.”
“Ah, Rhode Island!” Mr. Rumbin exclaimed with enthusiasm. “American School! Splendid!” He bowed again. “May I ask you courteously step in the galleries? There you seat yourselfs down comfortable while we show you some pyootiful, not loud, American School pictures.”
He led the way to the door of the room he thus spaciously called the galleries; stood aside for Mr. and Mrs. Wilby to enter, and then, as he followed them, spoke loudly to Georgina. “Miss Horne, please send wort to Mr. Cattlet, our Head Assistant, Mr. and Mrs. Milton Wilby’s kindly waiting to see some American School masterpieces.”
Georgina, however, didn’t need to summon the Head Assistant, so-called. The door of the stock room was open and Howard Cattlet, impressively dressed, came forth carrying a brightly varnished large painting of the Hudson River Near Nyack At Sunset. He looked wistfully at Georgina Horne; but already her head was again bent over her desk, and he, too, just then at least, had no nice glances out from her eyes. Disappointed, he went on, passed into the galleries and closed the door. For three quarters of an hour, indeed, Georgina’s devotion to duty was so complete that finally Howard ventured to speak to her about it.
“Couldn’t you ever look up at all?” he asked humbly. “This is the seventh picture I’ve carried right past you.”
At that, she did just glance at him. “How’s it going?”
“It’s not,” he answered. “This is the one he wants to sell ’em — Portrait of Reverend Joel Feeney by John Wesley Jarvis. If Mr. Wilby half likes it, Mrs. Wilby won’t — keeps talking about her Ducks on a Pond. Mr. Rumbin’s a good sport; but it seems to me they’ve pretty near got him down.”
Howard wasn’t far off the truth here. A little later, when the party of four came out of the galleries and into the shop, Georgina saw that her chief’s sensitive broad brow was bedewed. He breathed heavily, too; though still gallantly maintaining a confident aspect.
“Ah, but you ain’t seen just two t’ree per cent our great pictures, Mr. and Mrs. Milton Wilby!” he said. “Give me only couple days to think. I find something you couldn’t stop yourselfs from putting over your mantelpiece, Mr. and Mrs. Milton Wilby. Frangkly speaking, though, I wish you would think over acquiring my great Reverend Joel Feeney by—”
“No, indeed,” Mrs. Wilby said with emphasis, as she and her husband walked toward the outer door. “It may have been a clergyman, as you say, Mr. Rumbin; but it certainly has a dissipated mouth. We couldn’t think of having a picture with a mouth like that in our home.”
“No, we couldn’t.” Mr. Wilby spoke judicially. “Besides that, it isn’t only my partner, Mr. Hollins, that I’ve consulted about acquiring a picture. Our married granddaughter’s brother-in-law, Professor Egbert Watson of Ludlow University, advises me that if we have any picture at all it should be by an Outstanding Master. My own taste would be for a more Outstanding Master than any we’ve seen here to-day — ah — such a Master’s portrait of a beautiful and noble woman perhaps.”
“A picture in the home should be appropriate, Mr. Rumbin,” Mrs. Wilby added, not approvingly. “In such a home as ours it should be an inspiration every time either I or one of the family looks at it.”
“Yes,” her husband said. “Ah — some Outstanding Master’s portrait of a beautiful woman of pure and spiritual life and—”
“Execkly!” Mr. Rumbin agreed, beaming upon them. “I got the idea execkly.” He opened the front door reluctantly, as Mrs. Wilby extended her hand to the latch. “We got a just such a picture, all spirichul; only just right now this minute it’s out a couple days. Give me just until T’ursday—” His voice, as he followed the visitors out upon the sidewalk, was lost to the ears of his secretary and his assistant within the shop.
“Who’d Mr. Wilby say his married granddaughter’s brother-in-law is?” Georgina asked. “Didn’t he say it’s Professor Egbert Watson of Ludlow University?”
“Why?” Howard said. “Who’s he?”
“Nothing. It’s just something to remember.”
Mr. Rumbin returned, drooping, and closed the door. “Georchie,” he said, “how about that fency head, Cleopatra by Etty, we got out getting ironed from blisters at Paré’s? It’s finish’ T’ursday and it don’t got to stay Cleopatra on the tablet. On the tablet she could be Saint Cecilia just as easy as Cleopatra; she’s got putty much almost a pure kind of a face, and Mr. Wilby tells me let him know if I find one that—”
“No!” Georgina said. “That Cleopatra’s more than a head and it shows the asp, too. Besides, William Etty won’t be an outstanding enough Master for Mr. Wilby. He means somebody like Murillo or Guido Reni.”
“What a worlt!” Mr. Rumbin passed a handkerchief over his forehead. “Such a strain them people puts me in! Won’t look at no Madonnas but got right away quick to have a noble pure spirichul woman by a Outstanding Master or somebody elst’ll sell ’em one! Queen Mary of London wisiting a Nursing Home by Michelangelo Buonarroti or Jan Vermeer they want? Listen, Howie, go chump in the river; don’t learn to be no art dealer!”
