The Mystery of Murray Davenport | Page 4

meeting were a great piece of fun, and replied in a brisk and clean-cut manner:
"You were sure to find me in the haunts of genius." Whereat he looked around and chuckled afresh.
Larcher crowded a chair to Mr. Tompkins's elbow, and spoke low:
"You know everybody in newspaper circles. Do you know a man named Murray Davenport?"
"I believe there is such a man--an illustrator. Is that the one you mean?"
"I suppose so. Where can I find him?"
"I give it up. I don't know anything about him. I've only seen some of his work--in one of the ten-cent magazines, I think."
"I've got to find him, and make his acquaintance. This is in confidence, by the way."
"All right. Have you looked in the directory?"
"Not yet. The trouble isn't so much to find where he lives; there are some things I want to find out about him, that'll require my getting acquainted with him, without his knowing I have any such purpose. So the trouble is to get introduced to him on terms that can naturally lead up to a pretty close acquaintance."
"No trouble in that," said Tompkins, decidedly. "Look here. He's an illustrator, I know that much. As soon as you find out where he lives, call with one of your manuscripts and ask him if he'll illustrate it. That will begin an acquaintance."
"And terminate it, too, don't you think? Would any self-respecting illustrator take a commission from an obscure writer, with no certainty of his work ever appearing?"
"Well, then, the next time you have anything accepted for publication, get to the editor as fast as you can, and recommend this Davenport to do the illustrations."
"Wouldn't the editor consider that rather presumptuous?"
"Perhaps he would; but there's an editor or two who wouldn't consider it presumptuous if I did it. Suppose it happened to be one of those editors, you could call on some pretext about a possible error in the manuscript. I could call with you, and suggest this Davenport as illustrator in a way both natural and convincing. Then I'd get the editor to make you the bearer of his offer and the manuscript; and even if Davenport refused the job,--which he wouldn't,--you'd have an opportunity to pave the way for intimacy by your conspicuous charms of mind and manner."
"Be easy, Barry. That looks like a practical scheme; but suppose he turned out to be a bad illustrator?"
"I don't think he would. He must be fairly good, or I shouldn't have remembered his name. I'll look through the files of back numbers in my room to-night, till I find some of his work, so I can recommend him intelligently. Meanwhile, is there any editor who has something of yours in hand just now?"
"Why, yes," said Larcher, brightening, "I got a notice of acceptance to-day from the _Avenue Magazine_, of a thing about the rivers of New York City in the old days. It simply cries aloud for illustration."
"That's all right, then. Rogers mayn't have given it out yet for illustration. We'll call on him to-morrow. He'll be glad to see me; he'll think I've come to pay him ten dollars I owe him. Suppose we go now and tackle the old magazines in my room, to see what my praises of Mr. Davenport shall rest on. As we go, we'll look the gentleman up in the directory at the drug-store--unless you'd prefer to tarry here at the banquet of wit and beauty." Mr. Tompkins chuckled again as he waved a hand over the scene, which, despite his ridicule of the pose and conceit it largely represented, he had come by force of circumstances regularly to inhabit.
Mr. Larcher, though he found the place congenial enough, was rather for the pursuit of his own affair. Before leaving the house, Tompkins led the way up a flight of stairs to a little office wherein sat the foreign old woman who conducted this tavern of the muses. He thought that she, who was on chaffing and money-lending terms with so much talent in the shape of her customers, might know of Murray Davenport; or, indeed, as he had whispered to Larcher, that the illustrator might be one of the crowd in the restaurant at that very moment. But the proprietress knew no such person, a fact which seemed to rate him very low in her estimation and somewhat high in Mr. Tompkins's. The two young men thereupon hastened to board a car going up Sixth Avenue. Being set down near Greeley Square, they went into a drug-store and opened the directory.
"Here's a Murray Davenport, all right enough," said Tompkins, "but he's a playwright."
"Probably the same," replied Larcher, remembering that his man had something to do with theatres. "He's a gentleman of many professions, let's see the address."
It was a number and street in the same part of