will be all we need, for as soon as the
first few thousand papers are out there will be plenty of
money coming in for everything. Then we can take it easier,
and, as you say, Dorry, it is worth putting up with a good
deal to be able to have means for everything afterward. We
all appreciate that, now, and Perny says he is looking
forward to the day when he can have some other kind of
dessert besides hard-baked, barber-pole ice-cream, which is
what they give us at the little table-d'hote place where we
have been eating dinner lately.

"The Colonel is as good-natured and jolly as ever. He poses
for me whenever I want him to, and allows me to lend him a
dollar now and then, which I am sure comes in handy, for the
money he is expecting hasn't come yet. We give him a little
salary now, too, though we had to insist on his taking it.
But he is enthusiastic and a great help, and deserves it. He
is getting the circulation books ready, and has bought
himself some new clothes, though, fortunately for my
picture, he doesn't always wear them.

"I am still working on it a little every day, and have been
down to the 'line' one or two evenings. For some reason,
however, the work doesn't seem to have quite the feeling the
first sketch had--I mean quite the feeling of forlornness
and destitution. Van says it's because I've seen the 'line'
lately in warm weather, when the men are only hungry and not
cold. That must be so, I think, and I am not going to finish
it entirely until it gets cold again, so I can get back all
that wretchedness we saw on last New Year's eve. Perhaps
that sounds cruel to you, but it is the artist's way to make
capital out of the emotions of others, and anyhow, dear,
this isn't like 'Prometheus Bound,' that we used to read at
school, for it does nobody any harm and may even do good.

"It's likely to be cold and bitter almost any time after the
1st of October, but it ought to be very cold,--I mean in the
picture,--and there should be snow or sleet. I think sleet
would be better--a driving, stinging sleet, and a deadly
hard look on the pavement where the light reflects. There is
something in the way a man crouches and shrinks from sleet
that you never quite get any other way. Of course, I don't
want it to sleet on those po