Chapter 56

“There is a nouveau here,” drawled Laffat, leaning around his easel and addressing his friend Bowles, “there is a nouveau here who is so tender and green and appetizing that Heaven help him if he should fall into a salad bowl.” “Hayseed?” inquired Bowles, plastering in a background with a broken palette-knife and squinting at the effect with approval. “Yes, Squeedunk or Oshkosh, and how he ever grew up among the daisies and escaped the cows, Heaven alone knows!” Bowles rubbed his thumb across the outlines of his st…