d to put up its
shutters without this inconstant and difficult, but liberal customer.
I waited with impatience. I could not for the life of me see Armour's
connection with the native prince, who is seldom a patron of the arts
for their own sakes.

'Surely,' I said, 'you could not depend on the Indian nobility to buy
landscapes. They never do. I know of only one distinguished exception,
and he lives a thousand miles from here, in Bengal.'

'No, not landscape,' returned Mr. Kauffer; 'but that Indian nobleman
will buy his portrait. We send our own man--photographic artist--to his
State, and he photograph the Chief and his arab, the Chief and his Prime
Minister, the Chief in his durbar, palace, gardens, stables--everything.
Presently the Chief goes on a big shoot. He says he will not have a
plain photograph--besides, it is difficult. He will have a painting, and
he will pay.'

'Ah,' I said, 'I begin to see.'

'You see? Then I send this Armour. Look!' Mr. Kauffer continued with
rising excitement, baited apparently by the unfortunate canvas to which
he pointed, 'when Armour go to make that I say you go paint ze Maharajah
of Gridigurh spearing ze wild pig. You see what he make?'

'Well,' I said, 'it is a wonderfully spirited, dashing thing, and the
treatment of all that cane-brake and jungle grass is superb.'

'Ze treatment--pardon me, sir, I overboil--do you know which is ze
Maharajah?'

'I can't say I do.'

'Neider does he. Ze Maharajah refuse zat picture; he is a good fellow,
too. He says it is a portrait of ze pig.'

'But it is so good,' I protested, 'of the pig.'

'But that does not interest the Maharajah, you onderstand, no. You see
this one? Nawab of Kandore on his State elephant.'

No doubt about it,' I said. 'I know the Nawab well, the young scoundrel.
How dignified he looks!'

There was a note of real sorrow in Kauffer's voice. 'Dignified? Oh, yes;
dignified, but, you observe, also black. The Nawab will not be painted
black. At once it is on my hands.'

'But he is black,' I remonstrated. 'He's the darkest native I've ever
seen among the nobility.'

'No matter for that. He will not be black. When I photograph that
Nawab--any nawab--I do not him black make. But ziss ass of Armour--ach!'

It was a fascinating subject, and I could have pursued it all along the
line of poor Armour's rejected canvases, but the need to get away from
Kauffer with his equal claim upon my sympathy was too great. To have
cra