FROM A BENCH IN OUR SQUARE




A PATRONESS OF ART


I

Peter (flourish-in-red) Quick (flourish-in-green) Banta (period-in-blue)
is the style whereby he is known to Our Square.

Summertimes he is a prop and ornament of Coney, that isle of the blest,
whose sands he models into gracious forms and noble sentiments, in
anticipation of the casual dime or the munificent quarter, wherewith, if
you have low, Philistine tastes or a kind heart, you have perhaps
aforetime rewarded him. In the off-season the thwarted passion of color
possesses him; and upon the flagstones before Thornsen's Élite
Restaurant, which constitutes his canvas, he will limn you a full-rigged
ship in two colors, a portrait of the heavyweight champion in three, or,
if financially encouraged, the Statue of Liberty in four. These be,
however, concessions to popular taste. His own predilection is for
chaste floral designs of a symbolic character borne out and expounded by
appropriate legends. Peter Quick Banta is a devotee of his art.

Giving full run to his loftier aspirations, he was engaged, one April