bit disturbed at our josh, but just smiles sort of satisfied and superior.27 "I suppose it is different," says he, "but then, so am I. I've just been having some new photos taken. They're to be used with an article I'm contributing to a Sunday paper. It is to be entitled, 'What is a Revertist?' They are paying me $100 for it. Not bad, eh!" 27 "Pretty soft, I'll say," says I. "Soak 'em while the soakin's good." "Still getting on well with your job?" asked Mr. Robert. "Oh, I've chucked that," says Hallam airy. "No more of that degrading grind for me. I've arrived, you know." "Eh?" gasps Mr. Robert. "Where?" "Why," says F. Hallam, "don't you understand what has happened during these last two weeks? Fame has found me out. I am known as the founder of a new school of art—the original Revertist. My name has become a household word. And before this absurd libel suit is finished I shall be painting the portraits of all the leading society people. They are already asking about me, and as soon as I find a suitable studio—I'm considering one on West 59th Street, facing Central Park—I shall be overwhelmed with orders. It's bound to come." "You're quite sure this is fame, are you?" asks Mr. Robert. F. Hallam smiles and shrugs his shoulders. "Quite," says he. And Mr. Robert can't tell him it's anything else. Hasn't he got his pockets full of newspaper28 clippings to prove it? Don't people turn and stare after him in the street and nudge each other in the subway cars? Aren't his artist friends giving him a banquet at the Purple Pup? So why should he work for wages any more, or save up any of the easy money that's coming his way? And he sails out indignant, with his cape overcoat swayin' grand from his narrow shoulders. 28 "I give him up, Torchy," says Mr. Robert. "That is, unless you can suggest some way of making him see what an ass he is. Come, now!" "All right," says I, gettin a sudden hunch. "I don't know as it will work in his case, for he's got it bad, but suppose we tow him out for a look at Private Ben Riggs?" "By George!" says Mr. Robert, slappin' his knee. "The very thing. Sunday, eh?"
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