that gets me
to take his truck as a gift? He gave it to me, let's see, about ten
years ago, when he was trying to make a die of it, and failed; I thought
he would succeed. But it's been in my wife's room nearly ever since, and
what I can't understand is what she's doing with it down here."

"Probably to make trouble for you, somehow," Minver suggested.

"No, I don't think it's _that_, quite," his brother returned, with a
false air of scrupulosity, which was part of their game with each other.
He looked some more at the picture, and then he glanced from it at me.
"There's a very curious story connected with that sketch."

"Oh, well, tell it," Minver said. "Tell it! I suppose I can stand it
again. Acton's never heard it, I believe. But you needn't make a show of
sparing him. I _couldn't_ stand that."

"I certainly haven't heard the story," I said, "and if I had I would be
too polite to own it."

Minver's brother looked towards the open door over his shoulder, and
Minver interpreted for him: "She's not coming. I'll give you due
warning."

"It was before we were married, but not much before, and the picture was
a sort of wedding present for my wife, though Blakey made a show of
giving it to me. Said he had painted it for me, because he had a
prophetic soul, and felt in his bones that I was going to want a picture
of the place where I first met her. You see, it's the little villa her
mother had taken that winter on the Viale Petrarca, just outside of
Florence. It _was_ the first place I met her, but not the last."

"Don't be obvious," Minver ordered.

His brother did not mind him. "I thought it was mighty nice of Blakey.
He was barking away, all the time he was talking, and when he wasn't
coughing he was so hoarse he could hardly speak above a whisper; but he
kept talking on, and wishing me happy, and fending off my gratitude,
while he was finding a piece of manila paper to wrap the sketch in, and
then hunting for a piece of string to tie it. When he handed it to me at
last, he gasped out: 'I don't mind her knowing that I partly meant it as
the place where _she_ first met _you_, too. I'm not ashamed of it as a
bit of color. Anyway, I sha'n't live to do anything better.'

"'Oh, yes, you will,' I came back in that lying way we think is kind
with dying people. I suppose it is; anyway, it turned out all right with
Blakey, as he'll testify if you look him up when you go to Florence. By
the way, he lives in that villa _n