Part 35 (2/2)

A little later he received his first order frouise that he was pleased, much as he tried to carry it off with an air It was just before the Spanish war broke out, and the sketches he was to do related to the navy

He labored at this order with the ht anyhow, and he spent hours and daysnot only the atmosphere but the mechanical detail When he made the pictures they represented all that he felt

”You know those drawings?” he said the day after he delivered theood stiff price on theh”

”Did you get theive the 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 hted over it

At this tiement, 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 coer conceal his feelings ”I want to do soh all this rise fronition he lived close to his friends--a crowd of the--and interested hiine-building, his literary studies and recreations were allhim 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 friendshi+p increased I found how e of sympathies He was an expert bicyclist, as well as a trick rider, and used a ca, 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 hi

”Can't do it,” he replied

”All right,” I said

”I'ht, or I would,” he added apologetically

”What do you do?” I inquired

”Sing”

”Get out!” I said

”So be it,” he answered ”Coreed, and was surprised to observe the ease hich 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 the inrolling tide of success He was all alive, full of plans, and the tale of his co conquests was told in his eye Sometime in the second year of our acquaintance I called at his studio in response to a card which he had stuck under my office door It was his habit to draw an outline head of hi underneath it ”I called,” together with any word he ood spirits, and ralliedan office which was only a blind He had a roundabout way of getting me to talk about his personal affairs with hi, to hi to Europe next summer”

”Is that so?” I replied ”For pleasure?”

”Well, partly”