Sam's a patcher-up--a 'puttier.' That's what he is.

Sam can get more quality out of a piece of sandpaper, a pot of varnish, and a little glue than any man in the business.

If you don't believe it, just bring in a fake Romney, or a Gainsborough, or some old Spanish or Italian daub with the corners knocked off where the signature once was, or a scrape down half a cheek, or some smear of a head, with half the canvas bare, and put Sam to work on it, and in a week or less out it comes just as it left the master's easel--'Found by his widow after his death' or 'The property of an English nobleman on whose walls it has hung for two centuries.' By thunder! isn't it beautiful ?" He chuckled.

"Wonderful how these bullfrogs of connoisseurs swallow the dealers' flies! And here am I, who can paint any blamed thing from a hen-coop to a battle scene, doing signs for tobacco shops; and there is Sam, who can do Corots and Rousseaus and Daubignys by the yard, obliged to stick to a varnish pot and a scraper! Damnable, isn't it?
But we don't growl, do we, Sammy?
When Sammy has anything left over, he brings half of it down to me--he lives on the floor above--and when I get a little ahead and Sammy is behind, I send it up to him.

We are the Siamese twins, Sammy and I, aren't we, Sam?
Where are you, anyway?
Oh, he's after the dog, I see, moving the canvases so the little beggar won't run a thumb-tack in his paw.