t appears as though the leading industry in that city was
the issuing of two-weeks' invitation-cards to clubs. Archie since
his arrival had been showered with these pleasant evidences of his
popularity; and he was now an honorary member of so many clubs of
various kinds that he had not time to go to them all. There were the
fashionable clubs along Fifth Avenue to which his friend Reggie van
Tuyl, son of his Florida hostess, had introduced him. There were the
businessmen's clubs of which he was made free by more solid citizens.
And, best of all, there were the Lambs', the Players', the Friars', the
Coffee-House, the Pen-and-Ink,--and the other resorts of the artist, the
author, the actor, and the Bohemian. It was in these that Archie spent
most of his time, and it was here that he made the acquaintance of J. B.
Wheeler, the popular illustrator.

To Mr. Wheeler, over a friendly lunch, Archie had been confiding
some of his ambitions to qualify as the hero of one of the
Get-on-or-get-out-young-man-step-lively-books.

"You want a job?" said Mr. Wheeler.

"I want a job," said Archie.

Mr. Wheeler consumed eight fried potatoes in quick succession. He was an
able trencherman.

"I always looked on you as one of our leading lilies of the field," he
said. "Why this anxiety to toil and spin?"

"Well, my wife, you know, seems to think it might put me one-up with the
jolly old dad if I did something."

"And you're not particular what you do, so long as it has the outer
aspect of work?"

"Anything in the world, laddie, anything in the world."

"Then come and pose for a picture I'm doing," said J. B. Wheeler. "It's
for a magazine cover. You're just the model I want, and I'll pay you at
the usual rates. Is it a go?"

"Pose?"

"You've only got to stand still and look like a chunk of wood. You can
do that, surely?"

"I can do that," said Archie.

"Then come along down to my studio to-morrow."

"Eight-o!" said Archie.

CHAPTER V. STRANGE EXPERIENCES OF AN ARTIST'S MODEL

"I say, old thing!"

Archie spoke plaintively. Already he was looking back ruefully to the
time when he had supposed that an artist's model had a soft job. In the
first five minutes muscles which he had not been aware that he possessed
had started to ache like neglected teeth. His respect for the toughness
and durability of artists' models was now solid. How they acquired the
stamina to go through this sort of thing all day and then bound off