The Argosy, March 1907 — page 141: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ART ON. THE RAMPAGE. 713° “Sure,” “said Joe soothingly. ‘ Sure thing. Ill bet you a million dollars.” ‘No, I wouldn’t want to bet so much as that, but let’s bet the drinks all round.” ‘ All right, let’s,” answered Joe, ready to do anything to humor the man he thought was off his trolley. The stranger took him by the arm and led him around to the mirror. ‘Then taking a bottle of turpentine and a rag out of his pocket he went after those cracks, and in five minutes had the glass as clean as a_ whistle. The cracks weren't anything but paint. That was our introduction to Uly. He passed around some cards on which was printed : “Ulysus Rutherford Dunne, Artist.” “Gentlemen,” says he, “I have come to your little town with the intention of making it my future home. I am, by profession, an artist, as my work on the mirror will testify. I took the liberty of painting those cracks when the room happened to be empty, just to demon- strate my ability. In a few days I will open a studio here, where I will be pre- pared to do portrait, landscape, and pas- toral paintings; signs, lettering, and so forth.” $ And so it was that Uly settled down in our midst. He wasn’t a bad sort of citizen either. Curieus, as all geniuses are, but a right good fellow and jovial. He had a dozen brushes that he used to carry in his vest pocket. Curious con- traptions they were, about a foot long, hollow and filled with different colored paints. Worked something like foun- tain pens. And how. that fellow could paint. Anything you wanted, didn’t make any difference what, he’d paint it. Painted a head of hair on Lute Page’s bald pate that was so natural everybody thought he had a wig on. ‘The colored barber. tried to comb it and was so scart that he left town that night. There was a fellow named Jimmy Nolan lived here those days. Jimmy or- ganized a football team among the town boys and used to take ’em around the State playing other teams for gate re- ceipts and occasionally a small side bet. The year Uly came Nolan had the crack team of the State. Everywhere they went they registered a victory, and they were playing everything that came along. The whole town was interested in that team and mighty proud of it, I can tell you. Used to meet them at. the train with a brass band and haul them up through Main Street in the band wagon every time they came home from a game, whooping and yelling and carrying on like a Presidential election. That is, everybody but Uly. He didn’t like Nolan a bit and anything Nolan had an interest in was something you couldn’t interest Uly in nohow. When Nolan used to come down to Joe’s place of an evening and tell us how he’d won the last game, Uly would sit in the corner and snort and grunt and show a general contempt for every- thing Nolan’ said. One night he got more obstreperous than usual, and Nolan sort 0’ lost his temper. “ What’s the matter with you, you knocker?” he inquired, bristling up and walking over to where Uly was sitting. “Aw, it makes me tired to hear you brag so.” ‘“Who’s bragging? ”’ “Why, you are, of course. You go. chasing around the State with your lit- tle half-baked team, playing a lot of dinky little outfits that don’t know a football from a punching-bag, and just because you happen to be a little stronger and don’t get beat you think you are a football team. Why don’t you line up with something that can play football? They’d take the conceit out of you blame quick.” “Oh, they would? Perhaps yeu know of a team somewhere in the State that would like to try it.” ‘Huh, I could organize one right here in town that could put it all over yours if I had three weeks in which to train them.” : “You don’t say so. Well, you go ahead and produce that team and I'll just lay you ten to one that they don’t last as long as a snowball in an oven.” “Do you mean that?” asked Uly, brightening up. “ For if you do I’ve got ene hundred dollars that I’ll put up at those odds.” “Put it in Joe’s hands and I will cover it,” answered Nolan. EOMIG OOCK<S5(€0) im