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           Sol�s generosity and absurdity.
Alf had seen the ring, recommended the jeweller,
indeed; Tommy got the thing a great bargain.
Alf had spoken before of Mort Thomson�s appro-
aching marriage with �Fanny Fern�s daughter,�
about which Nast and Eytinge conversed, af-
fecting mystery.       Waud didn�t credit his bro-
ther�s volunteering until I confirmed it, when
he pronounced Bill a fool, denounced the South
Carolinians, said he had been requested to go
to Charleston on a sketching expedition, but had
refused on account of his family.      Sol, by the bye,
did a generous thing; prices wh were cut down,
not long ago, when he insisted that his salary
and Alf�s should be equalized; he got more
than Waud heretofore.     Alf had a family and
needed it, he said.          Here�s a good anecdote
of Sol.     Editor Phillips (who is an ass, though
in some respects a likable one) has an half-
affected, Boythornish way of bringing a trip-
hamer to bear on a ten-penny nail in talk; of
firing off fifty pounders at butterflies.    He came
rushing into the aquarium, or artists� shop, one
morning, doing the franticly-indignant against
the South.        Sol, who had been sitting drawing in
moody assiduity, suddenly leapt to his feet and
throwing his arms aloft, burlesqued Phillips� bogus