epresented the spectacular scenes which
the citizen and the stranger most delight in--Madison Square in a
drizzle; the Bowery lighted by a thousand lamps and crowded with "L" and
surface cars; Sixth Avenue looking north from Fourteenth Street.

I was a youthful editor at the time and on the lookout for interesting
illustrations of this sort, and when a little later I was in need of a
colored supplement for the Christmas number I decided to call upon
S----. I knew absolutely nothing about the world of art save what I had
gathered from books and current literary comment of all sorts, and was,
therefore, in a mood to behold something exceedingly bizarre in the
atmosphere with which I should find my illustrator surrounded.

I was not disappointed. It was at the time when artists--I mean American
artists principally--went in very strongly for that sort of thing. Only
a few years before they had all been going to Paris, not so much to
paint as to find out and imitate how artists _do_ and live. I was
greeted by a small, wiry, lean-looking individual arrayed in a bicycle
suit, whose countenance could be best described as wearing a perpetual
look of astonishment. He had one eye which fixed you with a strange,
unmoving solemnity, owing to the fact that it was glass. His skin was
anything but fair, and might be termed sallow. He wore a close,
sharp-pointed Vandyke beard, and his gold-bridge glasses sat at almost
right angles upon his nose. His forehead was high, his good eye alert,
his hair sandy-colored and tousled, and his whole manner indicated
thought, feeling, remarkable nervous energy, and, above all, a rasping
and jovial sort of egotism which pleased me rather than otherwise.

I noticed no more than this on my first visit, owing to the fact that I
was very much overawed and greatly concerned about the price which he
would charge me, not knowing what rate he might wish to exact, and being
desirous of coming away at least unabashed by his magnificence and
independence.

"What's it for?" he asked, when I suggested a drawing.

I informed him.

"You say you want it for a double-page center?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'll do it for three hundred dollars."

I was taken considerably aback, as I had not contemplated paying more
than one hundred.

"I get that from all the magazines," he added, seeing my hesitation,
"wherever a supplement is intended."

"I don't think I could pay more than one hundred," I said, after a few
moment