Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1906 (Heft 14))

THE COUP D’ETAT.

THE evening-boat was late and the crowd loafing on the bank to
see the new arrivals was growing restless.
One young fellow, who did not appear to have been long
from Broadway, remarked to a Greek shepherd in a faded yellow
chlamys that old Charon was “getting beyond his job.” “It
is the third time this week,” he said. “The superannuated old fossil ought
to be pensioned and an auto-boat put on the service.”
“I'll bet there’s graft somewhere,” he added to himself.
Meanwhile in the rooms of the Stygean Arts Club the members were
holding their usual evening reunion. At the end of a long table in the
assembly-hall sat Michael Angelo. His head rested on his hand and two
of his fingers protruded from his carefully disarranged hair in such a way
that he resembled his own Moses. He looked gloomy and out of sorts.
At his right, in the Secretary’s chair, sat a dapper little fellow with a super-
cilious smile and a white tuft like a rabbit’stail above his dark forehead.
At his left Turner, having surreptitiously dipped his finger in the red ink,
was doing a sketch on a yellow blotter, while sitting at the table in various
attitudes of more or less impatient ennui were Benvenuto Cellini, Gilbert
Stuart, Fra Angelico, Reynolds, Giotto, Meissonier and a number of the
other members.
Time was when these rooms had borne a livelier aspect. Once, indeed,
they had resounded nightly with the clash of ideals.
Here had occurred the historic debate over the admission of Rubens,
vehemently accused of conduct unbecoming a gentleman of the Old School.
And the no less sensational scene when Raphael Sanzio was defeated for his
one hundred and eighty-seventh term as president of the Club. And here
Rossetti et al had been acquitted, after an interesting trial, of the charge of
malicious libel brought by Perugino and Botticelli.
But times were changed. With the exception of Corot and Velasquez,
who in a half-hearted sort of way were pitching into Henner , the entire
company seemed sunk in the depths of boredom.
As a matter of fact, they were waiting for the Art notes in the Evening Sun.
Suddenly there was a commotion in the outer hall. The porter, the
doorman, the desk-clerk and the bell-boys seemed to be all talking at once.
Voices unanimous in a remonstrance at first firm, then insistent, came to the
ears of the assembly. Then amid a clamor of high-pitched objection the
door of the meeting-room was thrown violently open and a tall figure walked
calmly in and closed it in the faces of the clamorous attendants. A young
man whose tumultuous hair was dashed with spray, who had evidently had a
rough crossing and had come straight from the boat, who wore a brown
check suit, a black velvet waistcoat, a sea-green tie with streaming ends, a
three days’beard, and a smile.
Having closed the door and taken a quick, amused survey of the room,
he moved toward the head of the table in the midst of an astonished and

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