THE SIGNATURE OF THE KING 147 



What would his hosts have said had they met him going to 

 the cheap stores on that Strand? 



Sir Thomas Lawrence brought him purchasers for his 

 pictures and proved a kindly friend. But here is a picture 

 of the life of Audubon in those London days when he was 

 hoping to meet Gallatin and be introduced to the king: 



" One day my engraver called to say that I must pay 

 him sixty pounds on the following Saturday. 



" I was not only not worth one penny, but had actually 

 borrowed five pounds a few days before to purchase ma- 

 terials for my pictures. The pictures which Sir Thomas 

 sold for me enabled me to pay my borrowed money and to 

 meet the demands of my engraver. 



" At that time I painted all day, and sold my work dur- 

 ing the dusky hours of evening, as I walked through the 

 Strand and other places that the Jews controlled, hopping 

 in and out of the Jewish shops, or other places, and never 

 refusing the offers made to me for pictures fresh from the 

 easel. 



" Years passed. Better days came, and when I sought 

 these pictures that I sold in the days of my darkness I 

 could not find one of them." Such is the value of good 

 work. 



One thing consoled him always in his days of poverty: 

 his plates represented perfect work; the best at last is cer- 

 tain to find the reward of its own gravitation. 



He must now have wondered if the pious prophecy of 



