37
for life makes us selfish.       Writing till sunset,
finishing comic story with drawing to it.   Mort Thomson
and Arnold came up, the latter to borrow a book, the
former to se Haney.       Evening chores, and by 9, round
to Houston St.   Indifferent piano-playing heard in Arnold�s
room � evidently some woman or women there.  Gun came out,
went up in his room, Cahill went down, Arnold appeared &
Sears.  A good deal of going in & out � Sears understood
to be convoying feminine �party� off.    Nothing but innuendo
and brothel talk for a good hour, when I left.
  16.  Thursday.  Called on Blakeman, then to 17th Street,
to see Park Benjamin, not in, went again at 11.  Parton
had given me an introductory letter � an exceedingly friendly
one � to the editor of the forth-coming�Constellation.�  A plump
grey-haired, lame man, a long, peculiarly-made crutch lying
on the carpet beside him.  Talked a good deal, seemed
genial, but spready � perhaps fussy and opinionative.  He
gave me a very hearty reception.  Left M.S. stories � he
suggested subject for editorial � said he�d pay for it, if publisher
didn�t � that it should go in if he had to copy it out in his
own handwriting.      To Bellew�s, to borrow Sanger�s book for
review � stayed an hour or so � down town as far as Blee-
cker in car with him.   After dinner to Spruce St, to see
Roberts, proprietor of �Constellation.�  He gone.  Looked into Broad
way Pic office near Canal.  A little shop, boy in it, big grotes-
que pictures of Bellew�s hanging on walls.     Evening, scribbled
the last three and a half pages, when Hitchings and Oliver
Hillard came up.  Smoke, a mild tod, and talk.  Hillard
knows Park Benjamin.             Apropos of the latter,