Fiction > Book editions > New York, 1885 - Dynamiter

THE S UPERFL UO US MA iVSIOiV. 1 6 1
The gentleman regarded him with a very
friendly interest. "My dear fellow," said he,
''if you take my advice, you will give up this
business." And thereupon he resumed his hat
and took himself away.
This smarting disappointment produced a
strong effect on the artist of the cartoons ; and
he began with shame to eat up his rosier illu-
sions. First one and then the other of his
great works was condemned, withdrawn from
exhibition, and relegated, as a mere wall-
picture, to the decoration of the dining-room.
Their place was taken by a replica of the
original wafered announcement, to which, in
particularly large letters, he had added the
pithy rubric: " iVb service.^'' Meanwhile he
had fallen into something as nearly bordering
on low spirits as was consistent Vvith his dispo-
sition ; depressed, at once by the failure of his
scheme, the laughable turn of his late inter-
view, and the judicial blindness of the public
to the merit of the twin cartoons.
Perhaps a week had passed before he was
again startled by the note of the knocker. A
gentleman of a somewhat foreign and somewhat
military air, yet closely shaven and wearing a
soft hat, desired in the politest tenns to visit
the apartments. He had (he explained) a
friend, a gentleman in tender health, desirous
of a sedate and solitary life, apart from inter-