tter was, that this cablegram would be followed by
another, of a gentler sort, requiring him to come home. Should he write
and strike his flag, and ask for a ticket home? Oh, no, that he couldn't
ever do. At least, not yet. That cablegram would come, it certainly
would. So he went from one telegraph office to another every day for
nearly a week, and asked if there was a cablegram for Howard Tracy.
No, there wasn't any. So they answered him at first. Later, they said
it before he had a chance to ask. Later still they merely shook their
heads impatiently as soon as he came in sight. After that he was ashamed
to go any more.

He was down in the lowest depths of despair, now; for the harder Barrow
tried to find work for him the more hopeless the possibilities seemed to
grow. At last he said to Barrow:

"Look here. I want to make a confession. I have got down, now, to where
I am not only willing to acknowledge to myself that I am a shabby
creature and full of false pride, but am willing to acknowledge it to
you. Well, I've been allowing you to wear yourself out hunting for work
for me when there's been a chance open to me all the time. Forgive my
pride--what was left of it. It is all gone, now, and I've come to
confess that if those ghastly artists want another confederate, I'm their
man--for at last I am dead to shame."

"No? Really, can you paint?"

"Not as badly as they. No, I don't claim that, for I am not a genius;
in fact, I am a very indifferent amateur, a slouchy dabster, a mere
artistic sarcasm; but drunk or asleep I can beat those buccaneers."

"Shake! I want to shout! Oh, I tell you, I am immensely delighted and
relieved. Oh, just to work--that is life! No matter what the work is--
that's of no consequence. Just work itself is bliss when a man's been
starving for it. I've been there! Come right along; we'll hunt the old
boys up. Don't you feel good? I tell you I do."

The freebooters were not at home. But their "works" were, displayed in
profusion all about the little ratty studio. Cannon to the right of
them, cannon to the left of them, cannon in front--it was Balaclava come
again.

"Here's the uncontented hackman, Tracy. Buckle to--deepen the sea-green
to turf, turn the ship into a hearse. Let the boys have a taste of your
quality."

The artists arrived just as the last touch was put on. They stood
transfixed with admiration.

"My souls but she's a stunner, that hearse!