HERE indeed was an historic event !
At last, I mused, entering the Kennedy Galleries on Fifth Avenue, New York, where a collection of original Mickey Mouse portraits was on exhibit – at last America's most popular actor had come into his own. A one-man show was being devoted to his portraits by Walt Disney, at one of New York's most distinguished art galleries.
Mingling with the throng of art devotees, I began inspecting some of Mickey's pictures on the walls. My contemplation of a drawing of the young genius skating joyously across a pond was interrupted by a youthful, piping voice at my elbow :
"Exquisite!" it exclaimed. "Such firmness of line, such suavity and ease of execution !"
Struck by a familiar note in the voice, I turned – and beheld a sight that held me fast in my tracks, eyes bulging and jaw adroop. There stood Mickey Mouse in person, avidly gazing at his various pictures – but it was not the Mickey Mouse you and I know and have seen a hundred times on the screen.
He had discarded the familiar little white double-breasted pants and the absurdly over-sized shoes which had constituted his entire costume in fair weather and foul. Mickey now wore a morning coat, striped trousers, a gleaming white vest, and pearl-grey spats; he held a stick modishly tucked under one arm, and stood gazing at a picture through a be-ribboned pair of nose-glasses.
"Mickey !" I cried. "How--! What--!"
The Mouse elegantly raised a forefinger. "Tut, my good friend," he warned in cultivated accents. "Please, no unseemly noises. Remember that you are in the presence of Art !"
"But – ?" I made an inarticulate gesture toward his resplendent attire.
"Oh, to be sure," he commented, looking slightly bored. "And why not, pray? It's quite in keeping with all this" – with a sweep of his arm toward the surrounding pictures – "don't you know? Once I was just a slapstick comedian – Oh, those tiresome days ! Now I am not only a respected Artist, but a subject of Art as well. Come, let us feast, our eyes and regale our souls."
He led me, still somewhat dazed, over to the next picture, which he proceeded to scrutinize through his pince-nez. It was a scene from his picture, "Ye Olden Days," in which Mickey is seen as a medieval swain coming to a tryst with his Minnie through the window of her castle home.
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