Chicago gave me a taste of the joys of decorative painting, and I resolved in my mind the idea of devoting all my energies to it. Painting pictures to be hung on the wall by strings, generally badly placed or in the wrong light, was not satisfactory. Also, one had to be subsidized in order to wait for sales. But given a certain space to beautify, a space one knew about beforehand (the light, height, and color of the wall), and where one was reasonably sure his work would remain permanently—that was worth doing. While I was pondering on the subject, the news came of the competition for a prize given by the Municipal Art Society, in New York, for the decoration of the Criminal Court room. There was no money prize except the payment for the work ($5,000), but the proposition was very unusual and one to be sought after. I heard of the competition only on Friday, after everyone else had sent in plans, and the contest ended Monday. Two days and three nights! I never slept from the time I “hit” my studio Friday afternoon until three minutes of nine on Monday morning, when I ran from Fifty-fifth Street to Fifty-seventh Street with my sketches in my hand to present them to the jury. At the last minute there were complications. I had to have the drawings photographed and reduced to the correct scale, and then there were the frames. At eight-thirty the latter were not ready, so I took the workman’s tools out of his hands and finished them myself. All this time I had kept my faculties going by a combination of green tea and absinthe, drinking first one and then the other while working at a feverish heat. Thomas Dewing had said that a criminal court was a butcher shop and could not be decorated; that the only thing was to put a crucifix over the head of the judge and say to the prisoners, “There, damn you, look at that!” It was a ticklish business, for these poor devils come there, go over the Bridge of Sighs to the Tombs, and we never hear of them again. I decided that that being so, no brilliant color scheme was quite fair; one could not flaunt before these men roses and sunshine, so I adopted the theory of purple and white. Not all the contestants thought my way, however, and when the sketches were assembled and exhibited, there were one or two ridiculous ones. One man had suggested the first execution in New York City—three Indians hanging by the neck to a gibbet. Cheerful prospect for one expecting a sentence to the electric chair! A woman from Brooklyn sent in a bright little thing of birds, fountains, and babies playing about. Just as indecent as the one in the opposite direction, although I suppose the poor lady’s idea was to show the condemned man what he was leaving behind.