You know those drawings?" he said the day after he delivered them.

"Yes."

"I set a good stiff price on them and demanded my drawings back when
they were through."

"Did you get them?"

"Yep. It will give them more respect for what I'm trying to do," he
said.

Not long after he illustrated one of Kipling's stories.

He was in high feather at this, but grim and repressed withal. One could
see by the nervous movements of his wiry body that he was delighted over
it.

At this time Kipling came to his studio. It was by special arrangement,
but S---- received him as if he were--well, as artists usually receive
authors. They talked over the galley proofs, and the author went away.

"It's coming my way now," he said, when he could no longer conceal his
feelings. "I want to do something good on this."

Through all this rise from obscurity to recognition he lived close to
his friends--a crowd of them, apparently, always in his studio jesting,
boxing, fencing--and interested himself in the mechanics I have
described. His drawing, his engine-building, his literary studies and
recreations were all mixed, jumbled, plunging him pell-mell, as it were,
on to distinction. In the first six months of his studio life he had
learned to fence, and often dropped his brush to put on the mask and
assume the foils with one of his companions.

As our friendship increased I found how many were the man's
accomplishments and how wide his range of sympathies. He was an expert
bicyclist, as well as a trick rider, and used a camera in a way to make
an amateur envious. He could sing, having a fine tenor voice, which I
heard the very day I learned that he could sing. It so happened that it
was my turn to buy the theater tickets, and I invited him to come with
me that especial evening.

"Can't do it," he replied.

"All right," I said.

"I'm part of an entertainment tonight, or I would," he added
apologetically.

"What do you do?" I inquired.

"Sing."

"Get out!" I said.

"So be it," he answered. "Come up this evening."

To this I finally agreed, and was surprised to observe the ease with
which he rendered his solo. He had an exquisitely clear and powerful
voice and received a long round of applause, which he refused to
acknowledge by singing again.

The influence of success is easily observable in a man of so volatile a
nature. It seems to me that I could have told by his manner, day by day,
the inwash of the separate ripples of