Mr. Elihu is a 70-year-old man living in New York City. One day, he calls up the Art Students League, asking if a nude model can be sent to his home for him to sketch. The woman on the phone is wary because the organization doesn’t recognize his name; he assures them that he is an amateur, albeit involved, artist who wants nothing more than to draw. The League sends a woman named Ms. Perry over to Mr. Elihu’s house.

He starts to draw her but gets caught up in looking at her body rather than producing anything substantive. Ms. Perry calls him out on being an amateur and tells him to strip in her place. She produces a drawing of him, much better than the nonsense he produced of her because she is an artist. She angrily departs Mr. Elihu’s residence, leaving him to cry and pity himself. He picks up his drawing of her again but finds that he cannot remember her face well enough to fill it in.