ristide Pujol.

"And now that you've seen it with your own eyes, what do you think you
might ask me for it? I suggested something between two and three
thousand--shall we say three? You're the owner, you know." Again the
process of rib-digging. "Came out of that historic chateau of yours. My
eye! you're a holy terror when you begin to talk. You almost persuaded
me it was real."

"_Tiens!_" said Aristide to himself. "I don't seem to have a chateau
after all."

"Certainly three thousand," said he, with a grave face.

"That young man thinks he knows a lot, but he doesn't," said Mr. Smith.

"Ah!" said Aristide, with singular laconicism.

"Not a blooming thing," continued his host. "But he'll pay three
thousand, which is the principal, isn't it? He's partner in the show,
you know, Ralston, Wiggins, and Wix's Brewery"--Aristide pricked up his
ears--"and when his doddering old father dies he'll be Lord Ranelagh and
come into a million of money."

"Has he seen the picture?" asked Aristide.

"Oh, yes. Regards it as a masterpiece. Didn't Brauneberger tell you of
the Lancret we planted on the American?" Mr. Smith rubbed hearty hands
at the memory of the iniquity. "Same old game. Always easy. I have
nothing to do with the bargaining or the sale. Just an old friend of
the ruined French nobleman with the historic chateau and family
treasures. He comes along and fixes the price. I told our friend
Harry----"

"Good," thought Aristide. "This is the same Honourable Harry, M.P., who
is engaged to the ravishing Miss Christabel."

"I told him," said Mr. Smith, "that it might come to three or four
thousand. He jibbed a bit--so when I wrote to you I said two or three.
But you might try him with three to begin with."

Aristide went back to the table and poured himself out a fresh glass of
his kind host's 1865 brandy and drank it off.

"Exquisite, my dear fellow," said he. "I've none finer in my historic
chateau."

"Don't suppose you have," grinned the host, joining him. He slapped him
on the back. "Well," said he, with a shifty look in his little pig's
eyes, "let us talk business. What do you think would be your fair
commission? You see, all the trouble and invention have been mine. What
do you say to four hundred pounds?"

"Five," said Aristide, promptly.

A sudden gleam came into the little pig's eyes.

"Done!" said Mr. Smith, who had imagined that the other would demand a
thousand and was prepared to pay eight hundred.