ou begin to clean it."

"Don't make yourself anxious," the other said; "you can leave it in my
hands with perfect confidence. We're quite used to this business."

Westray still looked unsatisfied. The dealer gave a glance round the
shop. "Well," he said, "things don't seem very busy this morning; if
you're in such a hurry, I don't mind just trying a little bit of it now.
We'll put it on the table in the back-room. I can see if anyone comes
into the shop."

"Begin where the face ought to be," Westray said; "let us see whose
portrait it is."

"No, no," said the dealer; "we won't risk the face yet. Let us try
something that doesn't matter much. We shall see how this stuff peels
off; that'll give us a guide for the more important part. Here, I'll
start with the table-top and caterpillar. There's something queer about
that caterpillar, beside the face some joker's fitted it up with. I'm
rather shy about the caterpillar. Looks to me as if it was a bit of the
real picture left showing through, though I don't very well see how a
caterpillar would fit in with a portrait." The dealer passed the nail
of his forefinger lightly over the surface of the picture. "It seems as
if 'twas sunk. You can feel the edges of this heavy daubing rough all
round it."

It was as he pointed out; the green caterpillar certainly appeared to
form some part of the underlying picture. The man took out a bottle,
and with a brush laid some solution on the painting. "You must wait for
it to dry. It will blister and frizzle up the surface, then we can rub
off the top gently with a cloth, and you'll see what you will see."

"The fellow who painted this table-top didn't spare his colours," said
the dealer half an hour later, "and that's all the better for us. See,
it comes off like a skin"--and he worked away tenderly with a soft
flannel. "Well, I'm jiggered," he went on, "if here isn't another
caterpillar higher up! No, it ain't a caterpillar; but if it ain't a
caterpillar, what is it?"

There was indeed another wavy green line, but Westray knew what it was
directly he saw it. "Be careful," he said; "they aren't caterpillars at
all, but just part of a coat of arms--a kind of bars in an heraldic
shield, you know. There will be another shorter green line lower down."

It was as he said, and in a minute more there shone out the silver field
and the three sea-green bars of the nebuly coat, and below it the motto
_Aut Fynes aut finis_