This same gentleman had, in addition to his other interests, once owned a string of grocery stores. Guy Wetmore Carryl told me this. It appears that he sold a story to the magazine, and this thrifty editor (later finding no use for it) wrote to Guy and asked him if he would take it back and return the cash he had received. Guy refused. Then the editor wrote and asked him to try to sell it to some one else and “cash up.” This was too much. Stopping at one of the editor’s grocery stores one afternoon, he bought a can of tomatoes which he took home and opened, chose a tomato, bit into it and put it back into the can again. Then wrapping it up, he left it on the editor’s desk with this note. DEAR J——:—I bought this can at your store and do not like it. Won’t you be good enough to try and sell it for me and send me the money? Needless to say, they did not speak after that. The American idea is frequently to honor a foreigner because he is a foreigner and not because his work merits the praise. Change a good old Yankee cognomen into something that sounds like Italian or Russian, and the singer is assured a far better hearing. The same in painting. If a third-rate Italian should be in competition with Sargent for a public decoration or a portrait of a President, the Italian would probably get it. About the year 1894 Charles McKim, the architect, was getting ready to beautify Washington and have it cleaned of all its horrors. He died before he accomplished his purpose, but he made a beginning, and that was to decorate the interior of the Library of Congress. There was a great question in mind as to whether I should join the group of men who were doing the work. The United States always paid less than anyone else, and I was tempted to take more profitable work. I could have accepted any number of orders and hired assistants to carry them out, but I have always felt this was unfair to myself as well as to the public. A decoration is a creative thing and, as such, can be carried out only by the mind that conceives it.