"Ah been here before. Ah no greenhorn. Ah know the ropes a. You take a pictura don't cost you a centa; you don't pay me a dolla; ah make ah face a so you don't getta the pictura. You don't picka me up a sardine. I sale the banana lass year in New York."
A Frenchman was the next subject. Tall, meagre, polite, and talkative.
"Sare," he remarked, "ze photographie ees not to me for ze first taime. Ze art of all kind faind himself at home in ma countrie—la belle France. I also am artist. I make ze wall papaire to beautify ze house. I am artist in ze pastepot, and ze scissaires. To faind already a brothaire artist makes me to weep. Excuse me zat I weep. I remove to you ze hat; I salute ze veritable artist." Then this artist tried to kiss me, and because I repulsed him stood in gloomy majesty while I photographed him.
Following my French friend, a Scotchman was brought. He wished me to take pictures of his entire family—eleven in all—and when informed that only types, not families, were required, he broke forth:—
"I'm no able exactly to see why types should be needed, and no families. A type is guid eneugh thing gin ye'll want to prent a paper, but a lairge family o' braw lads an' bonnie lasses gangs a lang distance in a new land, an' I'm free to say my ain family is the lairgest ye'll see frae the ship."
Even the stolid immigrants had to smile when the next subject was brought. He was a young German, tight-sleeved, long-skirted, smiling, and chatty.
"Vell! Py jimmeny! you took my picture mid a box! How you done it I gifs oop! Und you told me ov I move I spoil him alretty. Den I don'd move. Ov a flea pites me, I don'd move,—ov you don'd stand me too long. Ov a man gifs me a glass of peer, I don'd move. Ov I got hungry, I don'd go to dinner all der vile. I shoost stand here like I vas a dellygraff bole! Don'd it?"
I finished the morning's work with a splendid specimen of a young Irishman, who had, I suspect, been injudiciously "treated" by his friends.
As I placed him before the camera, he said:—
"Av' it's taking aim ye are, don't say I thrimbled. God knows I'm willin' an' proud to die for ould Oireland! Foire! ye base murdherer, to desthroy me the day I kem ashore!"