"Not a bit."

He chuckled.

"You're bragging. If I really did you'd be overwhelmed with
remorse."

"Try it, and we'll see," I retorted.

A smile flickered in his eyes, and he stirred his absinthe in
silence.

"Would you like to play chess?" I asked.

"I don't mind."

We set up the pieces, and when the board was ready he
considered it with a comfortable eye. There is a sense of
satisfaction in looking at your men all ready for the fray.

"Did you really think I'd lend you money?" I asked.

"I didn't see why you shouldn't."

"You surprise me."

"Why?"

"It's disappointing to find that at heart you are sentimental.
I should have liked you better if you hadn't made that
ingenuous appeal to my sympathies."

"I should have despised you if you'd been moved by it," he answered.

"That's better," I laughed.

We began to play. We were both absorbed in the game. When it
was finished I said to him:

"Look here, if you're hard up, let me see your pictures.
If there's anything I like I'll buy it."

"Go to hell," he answered.

He got up and was about to go away. I stopped him.

"You haven't paid for your absinthe," I said, smiling.

He cursed me, flung down the money and left.

I did not see him for several days after that, but one
evening, when I was sitting in the cafe, reading a paper,
he came up and sat beside me.

"You haven't hanged yourself after all," I remarked.

"No. I've got a commission. I'm painting the portrait of a
retired plumber for two hundred francs."[5]

[5] This picture, formerly in the possession of a wealthy
manufacturer at Lille, who fled from that city on the approach
of the Germans, is now in the National Gallery at Stockholm.
The Swede is adept at the gentle pastime of fishing in
troubled waters.

"How did you manage that?"

"The woman where I get my bread recommended me. He'd told her
he was looking out for someone to paint him. I've got to give
her twenty francs."

"What's he like?"

"Splendid. He's got a great red face like a leg of mutton,
and on his right cheek there's an enormous mole with long
hairs growing out of it."

Strickland was in a good humour, and when Dirk Stroeve came
up and sat down with us he attacked him with ferocious banter.
He showed a skill I should never have credited him with in
finding the places where the unhappy Dutchman was most
sensitive. Strickland employed not the rapier of sarcasm but
the bludgeon of invective.