JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 45 
of his drawings in hopes of getting a 
recommendation. Vanderlyn at first 
treated him as a mendicant and ordered 
him to leave his portfolio in the entry. 
After some delay, in company with a 
government official, he consented to see 
the pictures. 
“The perspiration ran down my face,’’ 
says Audubon, ‘‘as I showed him my 
drawings and laid them on the floor.”’ 
He was thinking of the expedition to 
Mexico just referred to, and wanted to 
make a good impression upon Vanderlyn 
and the officer. This he succeeded in 
doing, and obtained from the artist a 
very complimentary note, as he did also 
from Governor Robertson of Louisiana. 
In June, Audubon left New Orleans 
for Kentucky, to rejoin his wife and 
boys, but somewhere on the journey en- 
gaged himself to a Mrs. Perrie who lived 
at Bayou Sara, Louisiana, to teach her 
daughter drawing during the summer, at 
sixty dollars per month, leaving him half 
