Yes, for the present, this dingy old house in this dingy old street was just the place he preferred to be.
It was not the part of wisdom to start forth on the beginning of his new career in his shapeless prison shoddy; so the next day Larry pottered about the studio, acting as maid-of-all-work, while the clothes in his trunk which had been stored with the Duchess were being sponged and pressed by the little tailor down the street, and while a laundress, driven by the Duchess, was preparing the rest of his outfit for his debut. In his capacity of maid, with a basket on his arm, he went out into the little street, where in his shabby clothes he was recognized by none and leaned for a time against the mongrel, underfed tree that was hesitatingly greeting the spring with a few half-hearted leaves. He bathed himself in the warm sun which seemed over-glorious for so mean a street; he filled his lungs with the tangy May air; yes, it was wonderful to be free again!
Then he strolled about the street on his business of marketing. It amused him to be buying three pounds of potatoes and a pound of chopped meat and a package of macaroni, and to be counting Hunt's pennies—remembering those days when he had been a personage to head waiters, and had had his table reserved, and with a careless Midas's gesture had left a dollar, or five, or twenty, for the waiter's tip.
When he climbed back into the studio he watched Hunt slashing about with his paint. Hunt growled and roared at him, and kidded him; and Larry came back at him with the same kind of verbal horseplay, after the fashion of men. Presently a relaxation, if not actual friendship, began to develop in their attitude toward each other.
“Tell you what,” Larry remarked, standing with legs wide apart gazing at the picture of the Italian mother throned on the curb nursing her child, “if I were dolled up all proper, I bet I could take some of this stuff out and sell it for real dough.”
“Huh, nobody wants that stuff!” snorted Hunt. “It's too good. Sell it! You're off your bean, young fellow!”
“I can sell anything, my bucko,” Larry returned evenly. “All I need is a man who has plenty of money and a moderate willingness to listen. I've sold pictures of an oil derrick on a stock certificate, exact value nothing at all, for a masterpiece's price—so I guess I could sell a real picture.”
“Aw, you shut up!”
“The real trouble with you,” commented Larry, “is that, though you can paint, as a business man, as a promoter of your own stock, the suckling infant in that picture is a J. Pierpont Morgan of multiplied capacity compared to—”
“Stop making that noise like a damned fool!”