I
Peter (flourish-in-red) Quick (flourish-in-green) Banta (period-in-blue)
is the style whereby he is known to Our Square.
Summertimes he is a prop and ornament of Coney, that isle of the blest,
whose sands he models into gracious forms and noble sentiments, in
anticipation of the casual dime or the munificent quarter, wherewith, if
you have low, Philistine tastes or a kind heart, you have perhaps
aforetime rewarded him. In the off-season the thwarted passion of color
possesses him; and upon the flagstones before Thornsen's Élite
Restaurant, which constitutes his canvas, he will limn you a full-rigged
ship in two colors, a portrait of the heavyweight champion in three, or,
if financially encouraged, the Statue of Liberty in four. These be,
however, concessions to popular taste. His own predilection is for
chaste floral designs of a symbolic character borne out and expounded by
appropriate legends. Peter Quick Banta is a devotee of his art.
Giving full run to his loftier aspirations, he was engaged, one April
day, upon a carefully represented lilac with a butterfly about to light
on it, when he became cognizant of a ragged rogue of an urchin regarding
him with a grin. Peter Quick Banta misinterpreted this sign of interest.
"What d'ye think of _that_?" he said triumphantly, as he sketched in a
set of side-whiskers (presumably intended for antennae) upon the
butterfly.
"Rotten," was the prompt response.
"_What_!" said the astounded artist, rising from his knees.
"Punk."
Peter Quick Banta applied the higher criticism to the urchin's nearest
ear. It was now that connoisseur's turn to be affronted. Picking himself
out of the gutter, he placed his thumb to his nose, and wiggled his
finger in active and reprehensible symbolism, whilst enlarging upon his
original critique, in a series of shrill roars:
"Rotten! Punk! No good! Swash! Flubdub! Sacré tas de--de--piffle!"
Already his vocabulary was rich and plenteous, though, in those days,
tainted by his French origin.
He then, I regret to say, spat upon the purple whiskers of the butterfly
and took refuge in flight. The long stride of Peter Quick Banta soon
overtook him. Silently struggling he was haled back to the profaned
temple of Art.
"Now, young feller," said Peter Quick Banta. "Maybe you think you could
do it better." The world-old retort of the creative artist to
his critic!
"Any fool could," retorted the boy, which, in various forms, is almost
as time-honored as the challenge.
Suspecting that only tactful intervention would forestall possible
murder, I sauntered over from my bench. But the decorator of sidewalks
had himself under control.
"Try it," he said grimly.
The boy avidly seized the crayons extended to him.
"You want me to draw a picture? There?"
"If you don't, I'll break every bone in your body."
The threat left its object quite unmoved. He pointed a crayon at Peter
Quick Banta's creation.
"What is that? A bool-rush?"
"It's a laylock; that's what it is."
"And the little bird that goes to light--"
"That ain't a bird and you know it." Peter Quick Banta breathed hard.
"That's a butterfly."
"I see. But the lie-lawc, it drop--so!" The gesture was inimitable. "And
the butterfly, she do not come down, plop! She float--so!" The grimy
hands fluttered and sank.
"They do, do they? Well, you put it down on the sidewalk."
From that moment the outside world ceased to exist for the urchin. He
fell to with concentrated fervor, while Peter Quick Banta and I diverted
the traffic. Only once did he speak:
"Yellow," he said, reaching, but not looking up.
Silently the elder artist put the desired crayon in his hand. When the
last touches were done, the boy looked up at us, not boastfully, but
with supreme confidence.
"There!" said he.
It was crude. It was ill-proportioned. The colors were raw. The
arrangements were false.
_But_--the lilac bloomed. _And_--the butterfly hovered. The artist had
spoken through his ordained medium and the presentment of life stood
forth. I hardly dared look at Peter Quick Banta. But beneath his uncouth
exterior there lay a great and magnanimous soul.
"Son," said he, "you're a wonder. Wanta keep them crayons?"
Unable to speak for the moment, the boy took off his ragged cap in one
of the most gracious gestures I have ever witnessed, raising dog-like
eyes of gratitude to his benefactor. Tactfully, Peter Quick Banta
proceeded to expound for my benefit the technique of the drawing, giving
the youngster time to recover before the inevitable questioning began.
"Where did you learn that?"
"Nowhere. Had a few drawing lessons at No. 19."
"Would you like to work for me?"
"How?"
Peter Quick Banta pointed to the sidewalk.
"That?" The boy laughed happily. "That ain't work. That's fun."
So the partnership was begun, the boy, whose name was Julien Tennier
(soon simplified into Tenney for local use), sharing Peter Quick Banta's
roomy garret. Success, modest but unfailing, attended it from the first
appearance of the junior member of the firm at Coney Island, where, as
the local cognoscenti still maintain, he revolutionized the art and
practice of the "sand-dabs." Out of the joint takings grew a bank
account. Eventually Peter Quick Banta came to me about the boy's
education.
"He's a swell," said Peter Quick Banta. "Look at that face! I don't care
if he did crawl outa the gutter. I'm an artist and I reco'nize
aristocracy when I see it. And I want him brung up accordin'."
So I inducted the youngster into such modest groves of learning as an
old, half-shelved pedagogue has access to, and when the Bonnie Lassie
came to Our Square to make herself and us famous with her tiny bronzes
(this was before she had captured, reformed, and married Cyrus the
Gaunt), I took him to her and he fell boyishly and violently in love
with her beauty and her genius alike, all of which was good for his
developing soul. She arranged for his art training.
"But you know, Dominie," she used to say, wagging her head like a
profound and thoughtful bird; "this is all very foolish and shortsighted
on my part. Five years from now that gutter-godling of yours will be
doing work that will make people forget poor little me and my poor
little figurines."
To which I replied that even if it were true, instead of the veriest
nonsense, about Julien Tenney or any one else ever eclipsing her, she
would help him just the same!
But five years from then Julien had gone over to the Philistines.