nt's
pennies--remembering those days when he had been a personage to head
waiters, and had had his table reserved, and with a careless Midas's
gesture had left a dollar, or five, or twenty, for the waiter's tip.

When he climbed back into the studio he watched Hunt slashing about with
his paint. Hunt growled and roared at him, and kidded him; and Larry
came back at him with the same kind of verbal horseplay, after the
fashion of men. Presently a relaxation, if not actual friendship, began
to develop in their attitude toward each other.

"Tell you what," Larry remarked, standing with legs wide apart gazing at
the picture of the Italian mother throned on the curb nursing her child,
"if I were dolled up all proper, I bet I could take some of this stuff
out and sell it for real dough."

"Huh, nobody wants that stuff!" snorted Hunt. "It's too good. Sell it!
You're off your bean, young fellow!"

"I can sell anything, my bucko," Larry returned evenly. "All I need is
a man who has plenty of money and a moderate willingness to listen.
I've sold pictures of an oil derrick on a stock certificate, exact value
nothing at all, for a masterpiece's price--so I guess I could sell a
real picture."

"Aw, you shut up!"

"The real trouble with you," commented Larry, "is that, though you can
paint, as a business man, as a promoter of your own stock, the suckling
infant in that picture is a J. Pierpont Morgan of multiplied capacity
compared to--"

"Stop making that noise like a damned fool!"

This amiable pastime of throwing stones at each other was just then
interrupted by the entrance of Maggie for an appointed sitting, before
going to her business of carrying a tray of cigarettes about the
Ritzmore. She gave Hunt a pleasant "good-morning," the pleasantness
purposely stressed in order to make more emphatic her curt nod to Larry
and the cold hostility of her eye. During the hour she posed, Larry,
moving leisurely about his kitchen duties, addressed her several times,
but no remark got a word from her in response. He took his rebuffs
smilingly, which irritated her all the more.

"Maggie, I'll get my real clothes late this afternoon; how about my
dropping in at the Ritzmore for a cup of tea, and letting me buy some
cigarettes and talk to you when you're not busy?" he inquired when Hunt
had finished with her.

"You may buy cigarettes, but you'll get no talk!" she snapped, and head
high and dark eyes flashing contempt, she swept pas