nd a square chin.

'Do you wish to see me, sir?' I asked him.

'If you're the painter of the picture I saw just now--yes.'

'It is something of a climb upstairs,' I warned him.

He took the warning as an invitation, and went upstairs, stepping firmly
and solidly in his heavy boots. When he reached my room, he took his hat
off and I saw he was bald. He had a good face, and a high forehead, and
he was evidently of the prosperous middle classes. Mademoiselle had left
the room, and had placed the picture upon the easel. He looked round
the room, and then faced the picture, square and business-like--like an
Englishman.

'Ah!' he said, 'that's the picture, is it? H'm. What do you want for
it?'

I told him I had never yet sold a picture, and did not know what price
to set upon it.

'What have you done with the rest?' he said, looking round the room
again. 'This isn't the first you've painted.'

His bluntness amused me, and I laughed. He saw my circumstances, and
there could be no service in disguise. I told him of my estimable Uncle.

'H'm?' he said, lifting his eyebrows. Then suddenly, 'What do you get on
'em?'

'Twelve and sixpence each.'

'How many has he got?'

'Nine,' I answered.

'Got the tickets?' he said, examining the picture on the easel.

I produced them from a drawer.

'Five pounds fourteen,' he said to himself. 'A pound 'll pay the
interest. Call it six ten, roughly. Got anybody you can send out for
'em?'

I rang the bell, and by-and-by my landlady appeared.

'Look here,' said the stranger, taking out a purse. 'Take this six
pounds ten and that lot of pawn tickets, and send somebody to the
pawnbroker's to bring the pictures out.'

My landlady took the money and went downstairs. In ten minutes she came
back again with a boy behind her, carrying all my canvas children home
again. During this time the stranger said nothing. Now he took the
change in silver and copper from my landlady, said 'Eight,' and nothing
more, and then set the pictures one by one on the easel and looked at
them all in turn. When he had satisfied himself, he turned on me again.

'Now, Signor----'

'Calvotti'--I helped him with my name.

'Now, Signor Calvotti, what do you want for the lot?'

I entered into his business humour as well as I could.

'Permit me to ask what you are prepared to give?'

'Oh,' he said emphatically, 'I can't be buyer _and_ seller. How much for
the lot?'

I thought it over. I knew the pict