When the committee had been named, a hint was dropped in one or two
newspaper offices that the powers which work darkly at City Hall
expected due credit for the self-sacrifice involved in putting on two
men at least from whom no reward was to be expected. The journals
improved the opportunity, and praised highly the choice of all three of
the members. When this called out a protest from the artists, because
no artist had been appointed, City Hall had no words adequate to the
expression of its disgust.
"That's what comes of trying to satisfy them fellows," one City Father
observed, in an indignant and unstilted speech to his colleagues. "They
want the earth, and nothing else will satisfy them. What if they ain't
got no artist on the committee; everybody knows that Peter Calvin's a
man who's published a lot of books about art, and it stands to reason
he's a bigger gun than a feller that just paints."
The committee paid no attention to the discussion concerning their
fitness, of which indeed they did not know a great deal, but came
together in a matter-of-fact way, precisely as they would have
assembled to transact any other business.
"I don't know what you think," Mr. Irons observed, as the three
gentlemen settled themselves in the easy-chairs of Mr. Hubbard's
private office and lighted their cigars, "but it seems to me we had
better try to come to some reasonably definite idea of what we want
this monument to be before we go any farther.
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