d the artist desperately. "I swear I'll never
touch a brush to the damned thing again."

The man with the pipe spoke to the dog at his feet; "Listen to him,
Czar--listen to the poor devil of a painter-man."

The dog arose, and, placing his head upon his master's knee, looked up
into the lined and rugged face, as the novelist continued, "If he was only
a wee bit puffed up and cocky over the thing, now, we could exert
ourselves, so we could, couldn't we?" Czar slowly waved a feathery tail in
dignified approval. His master continued, "But when a fellow can do a
crime like that, and still retain enough virtue in his heart to hear his
work shrieking to heaven its curses upon him for calling it into
existence, it's best for outsiders to keep quite still. Your poor old
master knows whereof he speaks, doesn't he, dog? That he does!"

"And is that all you have to say on the subject?" demanded the artist, as
though for some reason he was disappointed at his friend's reticence.

"I _might_ add a word of advice," said the other.

"Well, what is it?"

"That you pray your gods--if you have any--to be merciful, and bestow upon
you either less genius or more intelligence to appreciate it."

* * * * *

At three o'clock, the following afternoon, the little party from Fairlands
Heights came to view, the portrait Or,--as Conrad Lagrange said, while the
automobile was approaching the house, "Well, here they come--'The Age',
accompanied by 'Materialism', 'Sensual', and 'Ragtime'--to look upon the
prostitution of Art, and call it good." Escorted by the artist, and the
novelist, they went at once to the studio.

The appreciation of the picture was instantaneous--so instantaneous, in
fact, that Louise Taine's lips were shaped to deliver an expressive "oh"
of admiration, even _before_ the portrait was revealed. As though the
painter, in drawing back the easel curtain, gave an appointed signal, that
"oh" was set off with the suddenness of a sky-rocket's rush, and was
accompanied in its flight by a great volume of sizzling, sputtering,
glittering, adjectival sparks that--filling the air to no purpose
whatever--winked out as they were born; the climax of the pyrotechnical
display being reached in the explosive pop of another "oh" which released
a brilliant shower of variegated sighs and moans and ecstatic looks and
inarticulate exclamations--ending, of course, in total darkness.

Mrs. Taine hastened to turn