The old man sat
enraptured. The whisky and seltzer came up, and the host saw that the
glasses were filled and refilled, but he kept Davenport to the same
subject. Larcher felt himself quite out of the talk, but found
compensation in the whisky and in watching the old man's greedy enjoyment
of Davenport's every word. The afternoon waned, and all opportunity of
making the intended sketches passed for that day. Mr. Bud was for
lighting up, or inviting the young men to dinner, but they found pretexts
for tearing themselves away. They did not go, however, until Davenport
had arranged to come the next day and perform his neglected task. Mr. Bud
accompanied them out, and stood on the corner looking after them until
they were out of sight.
"You've made a hit with the agriculturist," said Larcher, as they took
their way through a narrow street of old warehouses toward the region of
skyscrapers and lower Broadway.
"Scott is evidently his hobby," replied Davenport, with a careless smile,
"and I liked to please him in it."
He lapsed into that reticence which, as it was his manner during most of
the time, made his strange seasons of communicativeness the more
remarkable. A few days passed before another such talkative mood came on
in Larcher's presence.
It was a drizzling, cheerless night. Larcher had been to a dinner in
Madison Avenue, and he thus found himself not far from Davenport's abode.
Going thither upon an impulse, he beheld the artist seated at the table,
leaning forward over a confusion of old books, some of them open.
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