Before one was a solemn door and the usual grill with a bell. Upon ringing, a huge negro peeked through, and one was admitted if one were a friend. Behind this was a reception room, and here I painted Pandora and her box with a great smoke, interspersed with figures, coming out of it; while over the mantel of the room behind were Hospitality and her attendants. The gambling room was on the next floor, and on the newel post of the stairway was a charming little reproduction of the “Bacchante” by Frederick MacMonnies, of which Anders Zorn said to me: “For the first time I see this lady where she should be—in a gambling house.” The architect had scaled everything down to undersize, so that in this narrow house things might look large. There must have been extra chambers in the walls, as in the daytime there was nothing to be seen of the tables or the wheels, and for aught one knew, it was a private home. The back room, where was served any kind of drink or food (even to cold partridge) that human ingenuity could conjure, was dark, of the dull colors of Spanish leather, and this formed a contrast to the room where the playing went on. This was light, with a carpet on the floor of terre-verte plush so thick that one’s feet sunk into its depths without making the slightest sound. I saw that the only color must come from the faces of the men, the red spots on the table—and my decorations. The spaces to be painted were two of those difficult cat-claw panels (spandrels) at one end of the room, and these were also undersize. I could not use a male figure, so made my “Night” and “Morning,” taken from Swinburne’s lines, When haughty Day represses Night’s cold and faint caresses, both from women models. Along toward the beginning of my work things were not going well with me financially; so late one night I dressed in evening clothes and went up to see Canfield. He received me in the supper room, called the waiter to bring a decanter of rye (which he never corked, but simply covered with a fine linen napkin, thus allowing the fusel oil to evaporate), and then asked me if I had come to play. I answered that I should not think of doing so indelicate a thing while working for him. At that he nodded his head saying, “I thought not.” “I’m in great trouble,” I said. “Well, a man can’t do his best work in that state. What is it?” I made a clean breast of everything. “The answer to all that is money,” he said, calling his secretary. “Bring me a check for a thousand dollars,” and then to me, “Now run away and do your best work.”