s, however, and consequently diffident.
This particular model was properly distant, and he finished his pictures
with as much expedition and as little expense as he possibly could.

Eugene was not given to scraping odd acquaintances, though he made
friends fast enough when the balance of intellect was right. In Chicago
he had become friendly with several young artists as a result of working
with them at the Institute, but here he knew no one, having come without
introductions. He did become acquainted with his neighbor, Philip
Shotmeyer. He wanted to find out about local art life from him, but
Shotmeyer was not brilliant, and could not supply him with more than
minor details of what Eugene desired to know. Through him he learnt a
little of studio regions, art personalities; the fact that young
beginners worked in groups. Shotmeyer had been in such a group the year
before, though why he was alone now he did not say. He sold drawings to
some of the minor magazines, better magazines than Eugene had yet had
dealings with. One thing he did at once for Eugene which was very
helpful: he admired his work. He saw, as had others before him,
something of his peculiar distinction as an artist, attended every show
and one day he gave him a suggestion which was the beginning of Eugene's
successful magazine career. Eugene was working on one of his street
scenes--a task which he invariably essayed when he had nothing else to
do. Shotmeyer had drifted in and was following the strokes of his brush
as he attempted to portray a mass of East Side working girls flooding
the streets after six o'clock. There were dark walls of buildings, a
flaring gas lamp or two, some yellow lighted shop windows, and many
shaded, half seen faces--bare suggestions of souls and pulsing life.

"Say," said Shotmeyer at one point, "that kind o' looks like the real
thing to me. I've seen a crowd like that."

"Have you?" replied Eugene.

"You ought to be able to get some magazine to use that as a
frontispiece. Why don't you try _Truth_ with that?"

"Truth" was a weekly which Eugene, along with many others in the West,
had admired greatly because it ran a double page color insert every week
and occasionally used scenes of this character. Somehow he always needed
a shove of this kind to make him act when he was drifting. He put more
enthusiasm into his work because of Shotmeyer's remark, and when it was
done decided to carry it to the office of _Truth_. The Art Di