146 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON 



services, and sometimes wondered how he could shift to gain 

 a meal. 



He was going to London, and his fame had gone before 

 him. He would there meet Sir Thomas Lawrence, the 

 almost idolized portrait-painter, whose fame filled the 

 world. 



More, he would there meet the famous Albert Gallatin, 

 the United States minister, a man of the rarest accomplish- 

 ments, who was schooled in all the arts of diplomacy, and 

 to whom Jefferson and Adams had intrusted the choicest 

 service of state. Gallatin, born at Geneva, Switzerland, 

 had become an American. He knew well the courts of 

 Europe. 



" Here," thought Audubon, " is the man for whose serv- 

 ice I have waited. He will procure for me the patronage 

 of the king." 



So he went to London full of hope. 



He was banqueted by noblemen, given receptions by 

 learned societies; his plates filled the learned with wonder, 

 but his pockets were empty. What should he do? 



He painted pictures secretly by day and sold them at 

 night as secretly to the paint stores, sometimes in Jewish 

 quarters, and the trade-folks' places. Imagine him wander- 

 ing by lamplight along the Strand, unknown, a common 

 pedler, selling his beautiful art for small sums, then going 

 back over the bridges to his quarters to prepare to meet 

 some illustrious person at a dinner in some fine old hall! 



