orchestra storing memories and often making crude sketches of Burton and other popular actors of that time. It was from these sketches and memories that fifty years later he painted the fine character portrait of Burton which hangs in the Players' Club to-day. Frequently he carried his father's big trombone to the theatre, and this was a privilege, as it entitled him to remain to the performance. Lester Wallack, Mr. and Mrs. Boucicault, Charlotte Cushman, Placide, George Holland-these were among his favorites of those days. At Castle Garden he heard Jenny Lind. The boy saw and sketched them all in his untrained way, and the influence of those early efforts and surroundings was continually cropping out in the great work of after years.

When young Thomas Nast was about thirteen years old, a number of foreign military celebrities came to New York City. Europe was still disturbed and their recent enterprises there had become unpopular. Kossuth was one of those visitors, and Garibaldi, whom, a few years later, the boy would join in his grand march from Marsala to Naples, but who now was ignominiously making tallow candles on Staten Island. The young artist had heard something of these heroes and their struggles for freedom. With his father, he saw Kossuth in a parade, after which he wore a Kossuth hat and drew pictures of the different exiled noblemen. One picture of Kossuth-a copy from Gleeson's Pictorial, with a rising sun marked " Hungary" in the background-was praised and framed by the school-teacher and hung by the principal's desk. This school, it may be said, was on Chrystie Street, near Hester-a most respectable neighborhood at that time. A little later, by advice of his father, he attended a German school, though only for a brief period. He left when required to confess, regarding his sins as too many and too dark for the confidences of the priest's box. A brief period at another German school followed, and a term at a

A SCENE FROM "OLD CURIOSITY SHOP (1856)

Forty-seventh Street academy, considered then very far uptown. It was all of no avail.

"Go finish your picture, Nast," the teacher would say to him. "You will never learn to read or figure;" the picture in question being usually a file of soldiers, a pair of prize fighters, a character from "Hamlet," or perhaps something remembered from far-off Landau, such as a little girl leading a pet lamb, or old Pelze-Nicol with his pack. This was his last school.

Efforts made by his father to induce him to learn music or a trade also ended in failure. The boy was an artist. Attempts at any other education did him little good.

CHAPTER III

IN THE WAY OF ART

He attended a drawing class taught by Theodore Kaufmann, a historical painter, a graduate from a German painting academy. Kaufmann taught in his studio at 442 Broadway, and on the same floor were the studios of Pratt, Loup and Alfred Fredericks-all well-known painters of those days. Of these, Fredericks in particular became a valuable friend and adviser of the boy artist, who immediately joined in the bohemian life and customs of the old building. One day a fire broke out. Kaufmann's studio and pictures were ruined-his class abandoned. The boy's art education came to a temporary halt, though he pursued his studies at home, aided by a set of " Harding's Drawing Copies." Through the guidance of Alfred Fredericks, he entered the Academy of Design, having been admitted on a drawing from a cast-the first offered.

The Academy was then on Thirteenth Street, just west of Broadway. Young Nast was soon elected to the life class, of which Mr. Cummings was the head. Academy methods were somewhat primitive in those days, and it was mainly due to Fredericks that the young man received proper guidance. Fredericks was at the time painting a panorama of the Crimean War, and allowed his protégé to help him. Once, when the day was cold and both money and fuel were short, young Nast

painted their stove red, which was regarded as a huge joke by visitors. One of these showed his appreciation by inviting both Fredericks and his assistant to luncheon. Thus the red stove supplied genuine comfort.

At the Academy with young Nast were a number of students who have since become well known. Samuel Coleman was there, also Eugene Benson, Hennessy, Whittaker, Walter Shirlaw and others destined to make their mark. With Fredericks and his fellows he spent many spare moments in visiting the art galleries-studying, admiring and criticizing, as art pupils do today-have always done and always will do until the "last great picture is painted.

It was about this time that a wealthy man, named Thomas Bryan, brought to New York a collection of paintings, among which were a number of genuine old masters. The collection is now the property of the New York Historical Society, and considered of great value. Yet for some reason its genuineness was questioned at first, and its popularity waned. But to the students, and especially to young Nast, it became a mine of wealth. Nast was allowed to take his easel there and to copy some of the rare paintings. Visitors were attracted by the fat little boy's work (he was very fat and German in those days) and prophesied well for his future. Bryan himself took an interest, and eventually made him door-keeper, allowing him all he took in over a certain number of admission fees of twentyfive cents each. It is possible that Bryan might have done something further for the lad, had not the latter, all at once, created an opportunity of his own.

He gathered up a bundle of his drawings one morning, and went over to call on Frank Leslie, who had already founded the Weekly which still bears his name. The great publisher looked at the round-faced German boy of fifteen and remarked that he was pretty young-a fact already known. Then Mr.

Leslie examined the sketches and observed they were pretty good-a fact equally obvious. Presently he rose from his chair and stood looking down on the short, moon-faced lad-a scene of which Nast has left us a caricature.

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"So you want to draw pictures for my paper?" he said. The small German looked up at the great man and nodded. Very well. Go down to Christopher Street next Sunday morning, where the people are boarding the ferry for the Elysian Fields (a resort beyond Hoboken), and make me a picture

ton that he had "no expectation of the little fellow's doing it, and gave him the job merely for the purpose of bringing home to his youthful mind the absurdity of his application."

Nevertheless the boy went early and worked late. Patiently, between boats, he drew the details of the scene-the approach with its heavy uprights, its cross-pieces and its hoisting chains; the huge balance weight; the swinging sign-card; the wide outlook to the river, with the hills outlined beyond. Then when the boat came, and the gates opened to let the crowd push through, he made swift mental pictures, and when all was quiet again, added to his drawing the racing boy, the barking dog and