to stroll and watch the lovers on Sundays. There
were many things, but these stood as susceptible of delicious, feeling
illustration and he wanted to try his hand. He suggested to the Sunday
Editor, Mitchell Goldfarb, with whom he had become friendly, that he
thought something nice in an illustrative way could be done on the
Chicago River.

"Go ahead, try your hand," exclaimed that worthy, who was a vigorous,
robust, young American of about thirty-one, with a gaspy laugh that
sounded as if someone had thrown cold water down his back. "We need all
that stuff. Can you write?"

"I sometimes think I might if I practiced a little."

"Why not," went on the other, who saw visions of a little free copy.
"Try your hand. You might make a good thing of it. If your writing is
anything like your drawing it will be all right. We don't pay people on
the staff, but you can sign your name to it."

This was enough for Eugene. He tried his hand at once. His art work had
already begun to impress his companions. It was rough, daring, incisive,
with a touch of soul to it. Howe was already secretly envious, Mathews
full of admiration. Encouraged thus by Goldfarb Eugene took a Sunday
afternoon and followed up the branches of the Chicago River, noting its
wonders and peculiarities, and finally made his drawings. Afterward he
went to the Chicago library and looked up its history--accidentally
coming across the reports of some government engineers who dwelt on the
oddities of its traffic. He did not write an article so much as a
panegyric on its beauty and littleness, finding the former where few
would have believed it to exist. Goldfarb was oddly surprised when he
read it. He had not thought Eugene could do it.

The charm of Eugene's writing was that while his mind was full of color
and poetry he had logic and a desire for facts which gave what he wrote
stability. He liked to know the history of things and to comment on the
current phases of life. He wrote of the parks, Goose Island, the
Bridewell, whatever took his fancy.

His real passion was for art, however. It was a slightly easier medium
for him--quicker. He thrilled to think, sometimes, that he could tell a
thing in words and then actually draw it. It seemed a beautiful
privilege and he loved the thought of making the commonplace dramatic.
It was all dramatic to him--the wagons in the streets, the tall
buildings, the street lamps--anything, everything.

His drawing was not neglect