At my first interview with Canfield I got a taste of the man I was to deal with. Clarence Luce was the architect who made the gambling house on Forty-fourth Street, next to Delmonico’s, and he came to me with a proposition to decorate it, saying that I was to talk the matter over with Mr. Canfield himself. I, of course, decided he would know nothing of art and it would be rather trying. I was mistaken. A short, fattish, powerful man greeted me and said, only: “I want your best work. You know what that is and I shall know it when I see it. We’ll talk the money over later.” This did not seem extraordinary to me at the time. Sad experience has since taught me to do nothing without a contract, but I have always found that with men of the character of Richard Canfield, nothing of the sort is necessary. In working for John Dunston, proprietor of the famous “Jack’s” Restaurant, I would paint a panel in my studio, take it down to the room, and put it upon the wall, go directly to the office and get my money—no criticism of my work and no arguments—just a man’s word, and as to the artistic part of it, he considered my judgment better than his. Like Napoleon, when Canfield wanted anything done, he employed the best men and told them to go ahead. He became a great friend of Whistler’s and has written one of the most interesting accounts of the painter that I have read. Whistler painted Canfield’s portrait and doubtless found him a congenial companion—as who would not? He knew life, he knew human nature, he was an expert on guns and firearms and had killed his man or I miss my guess; and yet I must say that Richard Canfield was a man in every sense of the word and as much a gentleman as one who lives outside the law can be. He was the god of all the smaller gamblers and had helped more than one over the rough spots. The house where fortunes were made and lost is standing to-day, and from the outside resembles nothing more than the ordinary, narrow, three- or four-story, brownstone dwelling place. In Canfield’s time, Clarence Luce had managed to transform the interior until it was quite a gem in its way. Entering by the big swing door, one stepped into a small vestibule done in Numidian marble. In the ceiling were five rhomboidal panels of thin jade behind which were lights casting a soft glow, Oriental in its effect (one might imagine it to be Cleopatra’s bedroom), and giving a thrill of mystery right at the start.