Page:Episodes-before-thirty.djvu/171

Rh I grew gradually stronger. Reporting was still impossible, but, introduced by Boyde, I earned something by posing in the studios. A "sitting" was three hours. Some artists paid by the hour, but Charles Dana Gibson, then drawing his weekly cartoons in Life, always paid for a full sitting, though he might use his model for an hour only. He was a rapid worker, and a good fellow; he never forgot to ask if one was tired of any particular attitude; my first pose to him was for a broken-down actor leaning against a hoarding covered with advertisements, the joke being something about a bill-board and a board-bill. I was thrilled when it appeared in Life. There was always a great rush among the models for Gibson's studio. The only other poses I remember are swinging a golf club and sitting for a bishop's arms and hands. I wore big sleeves. These, however, were not in Gibson's studio.

My memory of this work is dim; it was not unpleasant; only its uncertainty against it, though a good week might bring in as much as fifteen dollars. Smedley, who illustrated for Harper's Magazine, was the painter we all disliked most; Cox, son of Bishop Cox, Cleveland Cox being his full name, I think, was a favourite: he was a gentleman. There was Zogbaum too, another illustrator, and there was Lynwood Palmer, the horse-painter, and leading artist on The Rider and Driver, a first-class weekly of that day. "Artist Palmer," as the papers called him later, was a character. His kindness to me stands out. He had very great talent--for getting the likeness of a horse. We called him "The Horse." He made a success at his work, painted the "King's Horses and Men" in subsequent years, and settled down eventually--he was an Englishman--I believe, at Heston, Hounslow. His New York studio was in Fifth Avenue. Many a time he gave me food there.

"Artist Palmer" was self-taught. I forget the whole story, but he had known his hard times. Looking at my dirty boots the first time I called, he said: "When I drove a cab here, my boots were better cleaned than any Rh