Show K w v F COLLECTOR A FREAK ho he had an eyo eye gone and he bought remarkable substitutes I 1 ve known a lot of freak collectors collector in my time ume I 1 remarked archer way 0 f san francisco but the queerest whom I 1 ever knew know of was that which caught ike smalley ike and his brother amzi were earlies at cripple crek although they line up under the family name there ike was the elder and fought his br brothers othes battles likewise those of his bro brother therin inlaw barzilla Garz llla tenton of new jersey one night ike took up a scrap that fell to barzilla and lost hta his left eye when I 1 met him in san francisco he was pretty lean in frame and pock et but he managed to get got to alaska and sent tor for amzi and his bro brother therin in law after making a stake he ile came back three years ago with something less than a ton of dust leaving amza and barzilla Garz llla up there to share a half interest in a paying proposition while he be held them accountable tor for the othet half while up in the wilderness of that cold clime ike was satisfied to go one eye on things when he got down tc san francisco he began to think about appearances lie ile got to talking to ma me about glass eyes and I 1 took him to an boptist a shop and showed him a tray ot of eyes in the window we went in and the eye sharp matched his eye pretty well and charged him 20 it was a difficult job to find any thing to gee with ike a good eye tor for it was a yellowy greeny lamp with a fishy look to it but the boptist did his worst and it wasn gasn t his fault that the clay bird had more expression in it than the real pigeon ike spent an hour looking in the glass and using with it before he left the shop and on the street he admitted to me that the phony lamp had more charac ter than the real looker I 1 he wore it a week or two night and day and sorter became absorbed absorber in it then he branched out he ile d got the habit and just went in for glass eyes lie bought light blues dark blues browns hazels and all kinds of corn com bina tiona all of which diverted attention from his live eye he ile used the artificial eyes like an english duke would his collection of scarf pins and soon bad had a different glass eye for every day in the week and two or three for sunday the field on the coast got too nar row for him and he came east and looked up a Irenc frenchman hman who makes eyes la irl chatham square and got him to make some specialties tor for him he ile had original ideas and the lamp ex pert was willing to humor him at 50 a throw I 1 ike startled me one night with a topaz eye only an imitation gem but mighty fetching then he had an amethyst eye and a turquoise eye but really this was only a starter he was looking over the chop shop win dows in maiden malden lane one day when he came across a crystal brooch with a picture of a trout painted in it he ile wanted something just like that for a glass eye and made inquiries about how the work was done he ile managed to find out that an old frenchman in newark painted such things and chased him to his dugout there he made a combination between t the glass eye maker and the minia miniature tare man and set up a new line of work he ile gave the artist a line of subjects to bring out on the blanks made by the chatham square man and had the colors baked into the glass As artistic specimens they were great but as facial ornaments they were rather startling the first time I 1 saw ike with one was in the cafe A f an uptown hotel it jumped me when I 1 saw a pretty butterfly staring out of his eft left optic I 1 met him again that night to go to a theater and he called my atten tion to the fact that he had changed t the e ornament for the occasion the picture this time was a woman s head and bust we went to boston on the boat and on the way to fall pall river he wore an ee with a picture of a steamboat in it he ile said it cost him next morning he showed up with a locomotive headon head on in his eye socket that afternoon he her showed me what ho he had in bis his collection he ile had bad a vel vet Yet lined leather case with ith 24 ees in it there were fish game files flies elks beads steamships yachts in full sail bulldogs insects actresses an automobile a monogram and a lot of plain eyes of different colors ike wasn gasn t satisfied he ile said that the work wasn gasn t tua fun enough for him and that he lie was going abroad to see what be he could do in paris and geneva somebody had told him about a la fa mom swiss miniature painter and somebody else had bad put him wise to a firm in parts that made splendid little photographs on glass he lie let on to me we that be he was going to travel some and have eyes made reproducing all of the famous buildings and art works hes iles got the collecting habit in him bigger than a woodchuck and lord knows hes got unlimited money to indulge himself la in the tad fad he ile car rles ries a pocket signifying m mirror around with him so that he can see the results and he be makes three or tour four changes of eyes a day ike Is never so well pleased as when folks folka notice his artistic eyes and talk to him about them |