e and three priceless Kakemonos, told me he would "put me
next" an editor of his acquaintance. I forget the name of the paper now,
but I think it had some connection with women's clothes. I sent in my
story, but unfortunately my friend forgot to put me next, for I got
neither cash nor manuscript. The next time I passed the empty store, I
stepped in to explain, but the artist had a black eye, and his own
interest was so engrossed in Chinese lacquer-work and a stormy divorce
case he had coming on shortly, that I was struck dumb. What was a short
story in comparison with such issues? And I knew he had no more opinion
of me as an author than I had of him as an artist.

But when another typed copy came back from a round of visits to American
magazines, I kept it. I had a strong conviction that, in making a book
of what was then only a rather vague short story, I was not such a fool
as the mad artist seemed to think. I reckoned his judgment had been
warped by the highly eccentric environment in which he delighted. The
empty store in which he lived, like a rat in a shipping-case, was new
and blatant. It thrust its blind, lime-washed window-front out over the
sidewalk. Over the lime-wash one could see the new pine shelving along
the walls loaded with innumerable rolls of wall-paper. Who was
responsible for this moribund stock I could never discover. Perhaps the
mad artist imagined them to be priceless Kakemonos of such transcendent
and blinding beauty that he did not dare unroll them. They resembled a
library of papyrus manuscripts. Here and there among them stood some
exquisitely hideous dragon or bird of misfortune. He had a bench in the
store too, I remember, and seemed to have some sort of business in
mending such things for dealers. And he did a little dealing himself
too, for his madness had not destroyed his appreciation of the value of
money. He would exhibit some piece of Oriental rubbish, and when one had
politely admired it, he would say pleasantly, "Take it!" One took it,
and a week later he would borrow its full value as a loan.

With his Kakemonos he was even more mystifying, for he would develop
sudden and quite unnecessary bursts of rage, and announce his refusal of
anything under a million for them. And then he would exhibit them,
taking them from a broken Libby, McNeill and Libby milk case under his
camp-bed, and holding the rolled splendours aloft. And then, with a
grandiose gesture, as of some insane noblema