"Yes; but when must I say which?" says I. "It doesn't matter in the least," says Marjorie. "And you think just them few remarks," says I, "will pull me through." "Enough for an entire exhibit at the National Academy," says she. "And when you decide which you like best, just point it out to Mr. Bladen." "Gee!" says I. "Suppose I pick a lemon?" "Robert won't know the difference," says she, "and it will serve him right. Besides, poor Brooks needs the encouragement." "Kind of a dub beginner with no backing is he?" says I. Marjorie describes him different. Accordin' to her, he's a classy comer in the art line, with all kinds of talent up his sleeve and Fame busy just around the corner on a laurel wreath exactly his size. Seems Brooks was from a good fam'ly that had dropped their bundle somewhere along the road; so this art racket that he'd taken up as a time killer he'd had to turn into a steady job. He wa'n't paintin' just to keep his brushes soft. He was out to win the kale. Between the lines I gathers enough to guess that before she hooked up with Ferdy, the head-achy one, Marjorie had been some mushy over Brooks boy herself. He'd done a full length of her, it appears, and was workin' up quite a portrait trade, when all of a sudden he ups and marries someone else, a rank outsider. "Too bad!" sighs Marjorie. "It has sadly interfered with his career, I'm afraid." "Ain't drivin' him to sign work, is it?" says I. "Goodness, no!" says Marjorie. "Just the opposite. Of course, Edith was a poor girl; but her Uncle Jeff is ever so rich. They live with him, you know. That's the trouble--Uncle Jeff." She's a little vague about this Uncle Jeff business; but it helps explain why we roll up to a perfectly good marble front detached house just off Riverside Drive, instead of stoppin' at one of them studio rookeries over on Columbus-ave. And even I'm wise to the fact that strugglin' young artists don't have a butler on the door unless there's something like an Uncle Jeff in the fam'ly. From the dozen or more cars and taxis hung up along the block I judge this must be a regular card affair, with tea and sandwich trimmin's. It's a good guess. A maid tows us up two flights, though, before we're asked to shed anything; and before we lands Marjorie is gaspin' some, for she ain't lost any weight since she collected Ferdy. Quite a studio effect they'd made too, by throwin' a couple of servants' rooms into one and addin' a big skylight. There was the regulation fishnet draped around, and some pieces of tin armor and plaster casts, which proves as well as a court affidavit that here's where the real, sure-fire skookum creative genius holds forth.