"Not yet. But I'm going to as soon as I get this picture in place. This here ain't the end, Melissa; it ain't hardly the beginning. There ain't a picture of mine all over town that won't be worth double next week what it is this--and people anxious to pay the money, too. Just wait a little, Melissa; there's a good deal more to follow yet"--an ambiguous utterance to which the girl gave the meaning that her most vital hope required. A few days later the city press was teeming with matter pertinent to young Mr. Meyer's newest display--the paper that refused to teem would have had to tell him why. Jared stood in the calcium-light of absolute unshaded publicity. "An American Boy's Triumph." "A New Idea in American Art." "The Western Angelus"--this last from a serf that submitted, indeed, yet grimaced in submitting. Under head-lines such as these were detailed his crude ideas and the scanty incidents of his life. And there were editorials, too, that contrasted the sturdy and wholesome truthfulness of his genius with the vain imaginings of so-called idealists. These accounts rolled back to Ringgold County. "Ten thousand dollars! ten thousand dollars!" rang through township after township. "Ten thousand dollars! ten thousand dollars!" murmured the crowds that blocked the street before the big entrance to Meyer, Van Horn, and Co.'s. All this homage helped Jared to gloss over the paltriness of their actual check. By reason of this double hosanna he was a ten-thousand-dollar man in very truth. "And _now_," said Jared, "I will go and see Dr. Gowdy." IX "Dr. Gowdy is not at home this afternoon," they told Jared in response to his ring; "he is addressing a public meeting down town." This would have applied to half the days of every calendar month throughout the year. When Dr. Gowdy let a day pass without making some public utterance, he counted that day as good as lost. He spoke at every opportunity, and was as much at home on the platform as in the pulpit. Perhaps even more so; there were those who said that he carried the style of the rostrum and the hustings into the house of prayer. Certainly his "way" was immensely "popular"--vigorous, nervous, downright, jocular, familiar. Whether he talked on Armenia, or Indian famines, or street-railway franchises, or primary-election reform, or the evils of department stores (he was very strong on this last topic), the reports--he was invariably reported--were sure to be sprinkled freely with "laughter" and "applause." To-day Dr. Gowdy was talking on art. "It's going to be a hot one!" said the students among themselves. And they packed the assembly-hall of the Academy half an hour before the Doctor's arrival.