ery one!
Courage, he was full of it. Patience he didn't know by sight. Humility
he had despised--the poor fellow did not know that its hand touched him
as he strode.

"I ought to be thankful that he didn't kick me out," he thought. "I
daresay he was laughing in his sleeve at my abortions!"

Then he remembered his design for the ceiling, and at the Carews'
doorstep he paused. Cedersholm had told him to draw it on the Field
ceiling. This meant that he had another chance.

"It's perfectly ripping of the old boy," he thought, enthusiastically,
as he rang the door-bell. "I'll begin to-morrow."

Bella opened the door to him.

CHAPTER XVII

The following year--in January--lying on his back on the scaffolding,
Fairfax drew in his designs for the millionaire's ceiling, freely,
boldly, convincingly, and it is doubtful if the eye of the
proprietor--he was a fat, practical, easy-going millionaire, who had
made money out of hog's lard--it is doubtful that Mr. Field's eyes, when
gazing upward, saw the things that Fairfax thought he drew.

Fairfax whistled softly and drew and drew, and his cramped position was
painful to his left leg and thigh. Benvenuto Cellini came below and sang
up at him--

"Cielo azuro,
Giornata splendida
Ah, Maddelena,"

and told him in Italian about his own affairs, and Fairfax half heard
and less than half understood. Cedersholm came once, bade him draw on,
always comforting one of them at least, with the assurance that the work
could be taken out.

During the following weeks, Fairfax never went back to the studio, and
one day he swung himself down when Cedersholm came in, and said--

"I'm a little short of money, sir."

Cedersholm put his hand in his pocket and gave Antony a bill with the
air of a man to whom money is as disagreeable and dangerous as a
contagious disease. The bill was for fifty dollars, and seemed a great
deal to Antony; then a great deal too little, and, in comparison with
his debts, it seemed nothing at all. Cedersholm had followed up his
payment with an invitation to Antony to come to Ninth Street the
following day.

"I am sketching out my idea for the pedestal in Central Park. Would you
care to see it? It might interest you as a student."

The ceiling in Rudolph Field's house is not all the work of Antony
Fairfax. Half-way across the ceiling he stopped. It is easy enough to
see where the painting is carried on by another hand. He finished the