blic amusements.

"In my country," the customer said, without mentioning or betraying what
his particular country was--"in my country we have what you have not,
places to sit out in the fresh air, and drink a glass of beer, along
with the entertainments. You have not that in London?"

"Bless your soul, yes," said Leander, who was a true patriot, "plenty of
them!"

"Oh, I did not aware that; but who?"

"Well," said the hairdresser, "there's the Eagle in the City Road, for
one; and there's the Surrey Gardens; and there's Rosherwich," he added,
after a pause. (The Fisheries Exhibition, it may be said, was as yet
unknown.)

"And you go there, often?"

"I've been to Rosherwich."

"Was it goot there--you laike it, eh?"

"Well," said Leander, "they tell me it's very gay in the season.
P'rhaps I went at the wrong time of the year for it."

"What you call wrong time for it?"

"Slack--nothing going on," he explained; "like it was when I went last
Saturday."

"You went last Saturday? And you stay a long time?"

"I didn't stay no longer than I could help," Leander said. "All our
party was glad to get away."

The foreigner had risen to go, when his eyes fell on the Venus in the
corner.

"You did not stay long, and your party was glad to come away?" he
repeated absently. "I am not surprised at that." He gave the hairdresser
a long stare as he spoke. "No, I am not surprised.... You have a good
taste, my friend; you laike the antique, do you not?" he broke off
suddenly.

"Ah! you are looking at the Venus, sir," said Leander. "Yes, I'm very
partial to it."

"It is a taste that costs," his customer said.

He looked back over his shoulder as he left the shop, and once more
repeated softly, "Yes, it is a taste that costs."

"I suppose," Leander reflected as he went back, "it does strike people
as queer, my keeping that statue there; but it's only for one evening."

The foreigner had scarcely left when an old gentleman, a regular
customer, looked in, on his way from the City, and at once noticed the
innovation. He was an old gentleman who had devoted much time and study
to Art, in the intervals of business, and had developed critical powers
of the highest order.

He walked straight up to the Venus, and stuck out his under lip. "Where
did you get that thing?" he inquired. "Isn't this place of yours small
enough, without lumbering it up with statuary out of the Euston Road?"

"I didn't get it there," said Leander.