er was abetted by
the setting of the Sherwood library. He felt something of the old zest
when wits had been matched against wits, even though this was to be a
strictly honorable enterprise.

"You know the work of Mr. Jerome Hunt?" he asked.

"I have handled practically all his work since he began to sell,"
replied Mr. Graham.

"I was referring to work in his recent manner."

"He has not been doing any work recently," corrected Mr. Graham.

"No?" Larry picked up the Italian mother which for this occasion he had
mounted with thumb-tacks upon a drawing-board, and stood it upon a chair
in the most advantageous light. "There is a little thing in Mr. Hunt's
recent manner which I lately purchased."

Mr. Graham regarded the painting long and critically.

Finally he remarked:

"At least it is different."

"Different and better," said Larry with his quiet positiveness. "So much
better that I paid him three thousand dollars for it."

"Three thousand!" The dealer regarded Larry sharply. "Three thousand for
that?"

"Yes. And I consider that I got a bargain."

Mr. Graham was silent for several moments. Then he said "For what reason
have I been asked here?"

"I want you to undertake to sell this picture."

"For how much?"

"Five thousand dollars."

"Five thousand dollars!"

"It is easily worth five thousand," Larry said quietly.

"If you value it so highly, why do you want to sell?"

"I am pressed by the present money shortage. Also I secured a second
picture when I got this one. That second picture I shall not sell. You
should have no difficulty in selling this," Larry continued, "if you
handle the matter right. Think of how people have started again to talk
about Gaugin: about his starting to paint in a new manner down there in
the Marquesas Islands, of his trading a picture for a stick of furniture
or selling it for a few hundred francs--which same paintings are now
each worth a small fortune. Capitalize this Gaugin talk; also the talk
about poor mad Blakeslie. You've got a new sensation. One all your own."

"You can't start a sensation with one painting," Mr. Graham remarked
dryly.

This had been the very remark Larry had adroitly been trying to draw
from the dealer.

"Why, that's so!" he exclaimed. And then as if the thought had only that
moment come to him: "Why not have an exhibition of paintings done in his
new manner? He's got a studio full of things just as characteristic as
this one."

Larry