ought in."

"I can get a plumber from over on Eighth Avenue," volunteered another.
"We might have a 'trade' night, if Layton will come. Of course they'll
talk about nothing but how to sell their wares, but they'll have a good
time together."

Presently they forsook this theme, and Ewing found himself talking to
Chalmers, an illustrator with whose work he had long been familiar.
Though Chalmers drew Western subjects, Ewing was amazed at his
confession that he had never been west of Jersey City. Chalmers, on the
other hand, was delighted to learn that Ewing had so long been a part of
that life which he had portrayed from afar, and was at once profuse with
offers of help when Ewing explained his situation. He was eager to see
his work, and would install him in a studio.

"I know the place for you," he exclaimed, after a moment's reflection.
"There's a vacant studio in our building on Forty-second Street. Billy
Glynn told me to sublet it and sell the stuff the first chance I had.
You can move in right off if you like it."

Ewing thanked him warmly. It was pleasant to find that the recent Simon
Legree had his human side. Two of the other men at the table had studios
in the same building: Crandall, who made pictures for a comic weekly,
and Baldwin, who was a magazine illustrator. They became, like Chalmers,
solicitous to oblige the newcomer, and were attentive to Piersoll when
he praised, with a quick word or two, the drawings of Ewing. He felt
immensely drawn to these men who had dropped their bantering to be kind
to him.

The crowd of diners had thinned out until only a few lingered over their
coffee. From one or another of these scattered groups would come a burst
of laughter at the climax of a story, or a bar of song from one who had
reached his playtime of the day, and recked not if he advertised this.
It was an hour of ease in the Monastery, when its inmates expanded in
the knowledge that Sunday lay before them. To some, at least, this could
be a day of rest.

A musical member came from the rear room to the piano near the long
table to play a Liszt rhapsody. When this performer had gone back to his
seat one of the men from the big table--he who had lately enacted Little
Eva, and whose title of "The Brushwood Boy" Ewing at once related to his
beard--seated himself at the instrument.

"Heard a great song over on Third Avenue last night," he began. "Wish I
could remember--something like this--" His fingers searched