“But, Mr. Menna,” I argued, “isn’t it also dishonest for us to do the copying and let the dealers pass it off and sell it as original?”
“Maybe it is,” he admitted, “but we don’t see them selling them to the ‘suckers’ who buy them, and damn it all, we certainly don’t get the price, so what the hell—”
Mr. Menna had raised his voice, and immediately we heard:
“What the hell—what the hell—what the hell!
Do we care—do we care—do we care!”
The noise came from the studio across the hall.
“It’s that bunch of fellows at Fisher’s,” said Menna, grinning. “They get together and all chip in to pay for a model. Say, how would you like to pose for them? Most of them are illustrators, and they’d want you in street clothes and things like that. You can make an extra dollar or two. Go up and see Bonnat. He generally engages the model for the other fellows. You’ve met Fisher here. He’s that little red-haired chap. Talk to him about it, too. Now I’m off for lunch and a glass of beer. Come along if you like, Ascough.”
I went along with Menna. We ate in a little restaurant at the back of a saloon, corner of Eighth Avenue and Fourteenth Street. The lunch costs twenty-five cents each. Menna did not eat much, but he drank four glasses of beer, and he got cross with me when I at first refused to drink. So to please him I had a glass. He said:
“Now, you’re a good sport, and the beer will make you fat.”
“It’s not my ambition to be fat,” I laughed back.
“Get out,” he answered. “Did you hear that German fellow who was in the studio the other day, when Miss Fleming (Miss Fleming was Mr. Menna’s girl) asked him how he liked the American ladies? He said with a sad shake of his head: ‘They are too t’in. The German wimmens have the proportions,’ and he curved his hands in front of his chest as he said: ‘It is one treat to look at her.’”