I have made all enquiries, and
greatly fear that this work of ancient art has been mislaid. I labour
besides under another perplexity, not unconnected with the first. Pray
excuse the inelegance of this scrawl, and believe me yours in haste,
William D. Pitman.'

Armed with this he set forth and rang the bell of No. 233 King's Road,
the private residence of Michael Finsbury. He had met the lawyer at a
time of great public excitement in Chelsea; Michael, who had a sense of
humour and a great deal of careless kindness in his nature, followed
the acquaintance up, and, having come to laugh, remained to drop into
a contemptuous kind of friendship. By this time, which was four years
after the first meeting, Pitman was the lawyer's dog.

'No,' said the elderly housekeeper, who opened the door in person, 'Mr
Michael's not in yet. But ye're looking terribly poorly, Mr Pitman. Take
a glass of sherry, sir, to cheer ye up.'

'No, I thank you, ma'am,' replied the artist. 'It is very good in you,
but I scarcely feel in sufficient spirits for sherry. Just give Mr
Finsbury this note, and ask him to look round--to the door in the lane,
you will please tell him; I shall be in the studio all evening.'

And he turned again into the street and walked slowly homeward. A
hairdresser's window caught his attention, and he stared long and
earnestly at the proud, high--born, waxen lady in evening dress, who
circulated in the centre of the show. The artist woke in him, in spite
of his troubles.

'It is all very well to run down the men who make these things,'
he cried, 'but there's a something--there's a haughty, indefinable
something about that figure. It's what I tried for in my "Empress
Eugenie",' he added, with a sigh.

And he went home reflecting on the quality. 'They don't teach you that
direct appeal in Paris,' he thought. 'It's British. Come, I am going to
sleep, I must wake up, I must aim higher--aim higher,' cried the little
artist to himself. All through his tea and afterward, as he was giving
his eldest boy a lesson on the fiddle, his mind dwelt no longer on his
troubles, but he was rapt into the better land; and no sooner was he at
liberty than he hastened with positive exhilaration to his studio.

Not even the sight of the barrel could entirely cast him down. He flung
himself with rising zest into his work--a bust of Mr Gladstone from a
photograph; turned (with extraordinary success) the difficulty of
the back of the head, for