Spaniard's Revenge

Along the cafe terraces of Paris' Boulevard St.-Germain, where people sit, sip, and discuss Picasso, a new story was going the rounds. Picasso (so the story ran) had gone up from Antibes to Vence to see Henri Matisse.

He found the ailing 76-year-old master in bed. Picasso wanted to buy a painting, but Matisse said that he would rather make a trade. Next day Picasso appeared with several choice canvases, and Matisse chose one he liked. When Picasso looked around Matisse's room to make his choice, he noticed that Matisse had craftily hidden away all his best pictures. Finally, Picasso spied a little piece of paper on a bedside table. On it, Matisse had scrawled the outline of an apple. Matisse protested that it was just a rough sketch, and unfinished. Nothing else would do, Picasso insisted, and took it off to his studio. There he pinned it conspicuously to the wall. Whenever anyone asks what the drawing is, Picasso says: "Oh, that's what Matisse is doing these days."

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