with Ferdy, the head-achy one, Marjorie had been some mushy over Brooks
boy herself. He'd done a full length of her, it appears, and was
workin' up quite a portrait trade, when all of a sudden he ups and
marries someone else, a rank outsider.

"Too bad!" sighs Marjorie. "It has sadly interfered with his career,
I'm afraid."

"Ain't drivin' him to sign work, is it?" says I.

"Goodness, no!" says Marjorie. "Just the opposite. Of course, Edith
was a poor girl; but her Uncle Jeff is ever so rich. They live with
him, you know. That's the trouble--Uncle Jeff."

She's a little vague about this Uncle Jeff business; but it helps
explain why we roll up to a perfectly good marble front detached house
just off Riverside Drive, instead of stoppin' at one of them studio
rookeries over on Columbus-ave. And even I'm wise to the fact that
strugglin' young artists don't have a butler on the door unless there's
something like an Uncle Jeff in the fam'ly.

From the dozen or more cars and taxis hung up along the block I judge
this must be a regular card affair, with tea and sandwich trimmin's.
It's a good guess. A maid tows us up two flights, though, before we're
asked to shed anything; and before we lands Marjorie is gaspin' some,
for she ain't lost any weight since she collected Ferdy. Quite a
studio effect they'd made too, by throwin' a couple of servants' rooms
into one and addin' a big skylight. There was the regulation fishnet
draped around, and some pieces of tin armor and plaster casts, which
proves as well as a court affidavit that here's where the real,