“That’s all right,” nodded the tramp indulgently. “I don’t look much like a cartoonist, but all the same I once traveled as a lightning caricaturist. Heads are my specialty, and here goes for the fellow who came so near to blowing out the lights for a budding genius!”
Hiram watched eagerly, from that moment, for the space of a quarter of an hour. The faces Borden had quickly and crudely drawn on some cards, to amuse Dave and himself, and show off his accomplishments, the evening previous, had awakened the interest and admiration of the two lads. Now, however, Borden began to create, line by line, and curve by curve, as perfect a human face as Hiram had even seen done by an expert crayon artist.
“That’s him,” announced the artist, with a last touch of the pencil, and drawing back from the impromptu easel with a satisfied air.
He viewed his clever handiwork with a critical but gratified eye.
“Yes, it’s him,” went on Borden. “Thin, peaked chin, one wall eye. There you are! Just as good as if you’d got his picture from the rogues’ gallery—where he belongs, if I don’t miss my guess.”
“Pshaw!” exclaimed his audience of one, in so decidedly a disappointed way, that the amateur artist knit his brows, and looked hurt.
CHAPTER III
“TARGET PRACTICE”
“Why, I say!” exclaimed the tramp with a wondering stare at Hiram, “you don’t seem glad at all.”