es struck off on heavy plate paper, and
if you sent in five wrappers with a two-cent stamp you'd be mailed a
copy to tack up in the parlor.

Whether or not the general public would have recognized the Countess
Zecchi as the girl in the soap ad. if she'd kept still about it is a
question. Most likely it wouldn't. But the Countess didn't keep still.
That wasn't her way. She proceeds to put up a holler. The very day she
discovers the picture, through kind friends who almost swamped her with
cut-out copies and telegrams, she rushes back to New York and calls up
the reporters. All one afternoon she throws cat fits for their benefit
up at her Plutoria apartment. She tells 'em what a wicked outrage has
been sprung on her by a wretched shrimp of humanity who flags under the
name of Bean and pretends to be a portrait painter. She goes into
details about the mental anguish that has almost prostrated her since
she discovered the fiendish assault on her privacy, and she announces
how she has begun action for criminal libel and started suit for damages
to the tune of half a million dollars.

Well, you've seen what the papers did to that bit of news. They sure did
play it up, eh? The Psyche picture, with all its sketchy draperies, was
printed side by side with half tones of the Countess Zecchi. And of
course they didn't neglect F. Hallam Bean. He has to be photographed and
interviewed, too. Also, Hallam wasn't dodgin' either a note-book or a
camera. As a result he is mentioned as "the well-known portrait painter
of Greenwich Village," and so on. One headline I remember was like this:
"Founder of American Revertist School Sued for Half Million."

I expect I kidded Mr. Robert more or less about his artist friend. He
don't know quite how to take it, Mr. Robert. In one way he feels kind of
responsible for Hallam, but of course he ain't worried much about the
damage suit. The Countess might get a judgment, but she'd have a swell
time collectin' anything over a dollar forty-nine, all of which she must
have known as well as anybody. But she was gettin' front page space. So
was F. Hallam. And the soap firm was runnin' double shifts fillin' new
orders.

Then here one afternoon, as Mr. Robert and me are puttin' the finishin'
touches to a quarterly report, who should drift into the Corrugated
general offices but F. Hallam Bean, all dolled up in an outfit that he
must have collected at some costumers. Anyway, I ain't seen one of them
black c