s Poorgrass did. "Who? who?" asked the owl. "Kiddy Wee
o' Beedin'," was the reply.

[Sidenote: A DEALER OUTWITTED]

It was not long ago that a masterpiece was discovered at Beeding, in one
of those unlikely places in which with ironical humour fine pictures so
often hide themselves. It hung in a little general shop kept by an
elderly widow. After passing unnoticed or undetected for many years, it
was silently identified by a dealer who happened to be buying some
biscuits. He made a casual remark about it, learned that any value that
might be set upon it was sentimental rather than monetary, and returned
home. He laid the matter before one or two friends, with the result that
they visited Beeding in a party a day or so later in order to bear away
the prize. Outside the shop they held a council of war. One was for
bidding at the outset a small but sufficient sum for the picture,
another for affecting to want something else and leading round to the
picture, and so forth; but in the discussion of tactics they raised
their voices too high, so that a visitor of the widow, sitting in the
room over the shop, heard something of the matter. Suspecting danger,
but wholly unconscious of its nature, she hurried downstairs and warned
her friend of a predatory gang outside who were not to be supplied on
any account with anything they asked for. The widow obeyed blindly. They
asked for tea--she refused to sell it; they asked for biscuits--she set
her hand firmly on the lid; they mentioned the picture--she was a rock.
Baffled, they withdrew; and the widow, now on the right scent, took the
next train to Brighton to lay the whole matter before her landlord. He
took it up, consulted an expert, and the picture was found to be a
portrait of Mrs. Jordan, the work either of Romney or Lawrence.

[Sidenote: THE FURNITURE SWINDLE]

Furniture is the usual prey of the dealer who lounges casually through
old villages in the guise of a tourist, asking for food or water at old
cottages and farmhouses, and using his eyes to some purpose the while.
Pictures are rare. The search for chests, turned bed-posts, fire-backs,
Chippendale chairs, warming pans, grandfather's clocks, and other
indigenous articles of the old simple homestead which are thought so
decorative in the sophisticated villa and establish the artistic credit
and taste of their new owner, has been prosecuted in Sussex with as much
energy as elsewhere--not only by the professional dealer,