O. Henry is being facetious. He could not possibly know about the first artist who discovered Greenwich Village and started a trend. The author is painting a fanciful word-picture based on his impression of the maze-like streets of the Village.
In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called “places.” These “places” make strange angles and curves. One street crosses itself a time or two.
O. Henry amuses himself and the reader by imagining some starving artist getting lost in this maze and realizing the "valuable possibility" of living there. A bill collector could never find him but would wander around until he came out empty-handed where he first started.
Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account!
O. Henry invents an imaginary original colonist who was responsible for the influx of all the other struggling artists who have inhabited this district ever since. The real attraction, of course, was cheap rent. Sue and Johnsy are two struggling artists. Old Behrman is another, although he represents the artists who have given up the struggle. Being artists, these colonists have brought the district a certain charm in spite of the fact that most of them have little money. They can decorate the windows with flowers and hang their unsold paintings on all the walls. They can have a great amount of social activity with a little cheese and cheap wine and guitar music. O. Henry suggests some of the attractions when he writes:
Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth avenue, and became a “colony.”
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