manner."

"Be easy, Barry. That looks like a practical scheme; but suppose he
turned out to be a bad illustrator?"

"I don't think he would. He must be fairly good, or I shouldn't have
remembered his name. I'll look through the files of back numbers in my
room to-night, till I find some of his work, so I can recommend him
intelligently. Meanwhile, is there any editor who has something of yours
in hand just now?"

"Why, yes," said Larcher, brightening, "I got a notice of acceptance
to-day from the _Avenue Magazine_, of a thing about the rivers of New
York City in the old days. It simply cries aloud for illustration."

"That's all right, then. Rogers mayn't have given it out yet for
illustration. We'll call on him to-morrow. He'll be glad to see me; he'll
think I've come to pay him ten dollars I owe him. Suppose we go now and
tackle the old magazines in my room, to see what my praises of Mr.
Davenport shall rest on. As we go, we'll look the gentleman up in the
directory at the drug-store--unless you'd prefer to tarry here at the
banquet of wit and beauty." Mr. Tompkins chuckled again as he waved a
hand over the scene, which, despite his ridicule of the pose and conceit
it largely represented, he had come by force of circumstances regularly
to inhabit.

Mr. Larcher, though he found the place congenial enough, was rather for
the pursuit of his own affair. Before leaving the house, Tompkins led the
way up a flight of stairs to a little office wherein sat the foreign old
woman who conducted this tavern of the muses. He thought that she, who