Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/58

44 iron chairs at one of the iron tables and motioned me to another at his side.

When I had seated myself he said "Beer" to the waiter who appeared, and held up two fingers.

"Now, look at here," he resumed to me, "this is a good place to do about four pages of art, and then we can go out and have some recreation somewhere." Seeing that I was puzzled, he added: "This way—you take that notebook and write in it out of this here other book till I think you've done enough, then I'll tell you to stop." And while I was still bewildered, he drew from an inner pocket a small, well-thumbed volume which I took from him and saw to be entitled "One Hundred Masterpieces of the Louvre."

"Open her about the middle," he directed, "and pick out something that begins good, like 'Here the true art-lover will stand entranced' You got to write it, because I guess you can write faster than what I can. I'll tell her I dictated to you. Get a hustle on now, so's we can get through. Write down about four pages of that stuff."

Stunned I was for a moment at his audacity. Too plainly I saw through his deception. Each day, doubtless, he had come to a low place of this sort and copied into the notebook from the printed volume.

"But, sir," I protested, "why not at least go to the gallery where these art objects are stored? Copy the notes there if that must be done."

"I don't know where the darned place is," he confessed. "I did start for it the first day, but I run into a Punch and Judy show in a little park, and I just couldn't get away from it, it was so comical, with all the French kids