The old fellow shambled feebly to the seat adjoining my own, gazing pensively out of the window for a few moments, and then turning fixed a pair of penetrating blue eyes upon me. "Pretty tiresome waiting," he ventured, in a voice not altogether certain in its pitch, as if he had not had much chance to use it latterly.
"Very," said I carelessly. "But I suppose we've got to get used to this sort of thing."
"I suppose so," he agreed; "but just the same for a man in your business I should think it would be something awful. Don't it get on your nerves?"
"What do you know about my business?" I asked, my curiosity aroused.
"Oh," he laughed, "I know who you are. I read one of your books once. I've forgotten what it was about; but it had your picture in the front of it, and I knew you the minute I saw you. Besides I was down in Tucson the other day, and—you're going to lecture at Tucson Tuesday night, aren't you?"
"I am if I ever get there," said I. "At this rate of speed I'm afraid it'll be season after next."
"Well, they'll be ready for you when you arrive," he chuckled. "They've got your picture plastered all over the place. It's in every drug-store and saloon window in the town. They've got it tacked onto every tree, hydrant, hitching post, billboard, and pump, from the railway station out to the university and back. I ain't sure that there ain't a few of 'em nailed onto the ash barrels. You can't look anywhere without seeing John Kendrick Bangs staring out at you from the depths of a photographer's arm chair. Fact is," he added with a whimsical wink, "I left Tucson to get away from the Bangs rash that's broken out all over the place, and, by Jehosaphat! I get aboard this train, and there sets the original!"
I laughed and handed the old fellow a cigar, which he accepted with avidity, biting off at least a quarter of it in his eagerness to get down to business.
"I'm not so bad as I'm lithographed," I said facetiously.
"So I see," he replied, "and it must be some comfort to you to realize that if you ever get down and out financially you've got a first-class case for libel against the feller that lithographed you."