ow are things?"

"Oh! Fine!" He could scarcely articulate. A ghastly sob impeded the
words. Tears gushed into his eyes. The dimly glowing oblongs in the dark
facades of the Grove seemed unbearably tragic.

III

No. 6 Romney Studios, Manresa Road, Chelsea, was at the end of the
narrow alley which, running at right angles to the road, had a blank
wall on its left and Romney Studios on its right. The studios themselves
were nondescript shanties which reminded George of nothing so much as
the office of a clerk-of-the-works nailed together anyhow on ground upon
which a large building is in course of erection. They were constructed
of brick, wood, waterproof felting, and that adaptable material,
corrugated iron. No two were alike. None had the least pretension to
permanency, comeliness, or even architectural decency. They were all
horribly hot in summer, and they all needed immense stoves to render
them habitable in winter. In putting them up, however, cautiously and
one by one, the landlord had esteemed them to be the sort of thing that
was good enough for artists and that artists would willingly accept. He
had not been mistaken. Though inexpensive they were dear, but artists
accepted them with eagerness. None was ever empty. Thus it was
demonstrated once more that artists were exactly what capitalists and
other sagacious persons had always accused them of being.

When George knocked on the door of No. 6, the entire studio, and No. 5
also, vibrated. As a rule Agg, the female Cerberus of the shanty,
answered any summons from outside; but George hoped that to-night she
would be absent; he knew by experience that on Sunday nights she usually
paid a visit to her obstreperous family in Alexandra Grove.

The door was opened by a young man in a rich but torn and soiled
eighteenth-century costume, and he looked, in the half-light of the
entrance, as though he was just recovering from a sustained debauch. The
young man stared haughtily in silence. Only after an appreciable
hesitation did George see through the disguise and recover himself
sufficiently to remark with the proper nonchalance:

"Hallo, Agg! What's the meaning of this?"

"You're before your time," said she, shutting the door.

While he took off his overcoat Agg walked up the studio. She made an
astonishingly life-like young man. George and Agg were now not
unfriendly; but each constantly criticized the other in silence, and
both were aware of the existence of