made so many that he
desired that his wife should be called Lady "Buttons." He therefore
bought a unique picture at great cost, and gave it to the nation. It was
"part," his friends said, "of his general game." The second of the
private collectors was an Americophobe, and bought an unique picture to
"spite the damned Yanks." The third of the private collectors was
Soames, who--more sober than either of the, others--bought after a visit
to Madrid, because he was certain that Goya was still on the up grade.
Goya was not booming at the moment, but he would come again; and, looking
at that portrait, Hogarthian, Manetesque in its directness, but with its
own queer sharp beauty of paint, he was perfectly satisfied still that he
had made no error, heavy though the price had been--heaviest he had ever
paid. And next to it was hanging the copy of "La Vendimia." There she
was--the little wretch-looking back at him in her dreamy mood, the mood
he loved best because he felt so much safer when she looked like that.

He was still gazing when the scent of a cigar impinged on his nostrils,
and a voice said:

"Well, Mr. Forsyde, what you goin' to do with this small lot?"

That Belgian chap, whose mother-as if Flemish blood were not enough--had
been Armenian! Subduing a natural irritation, he said:

"Are you a judge of pictures?"

"Well, I've got a few myself."

"Any Post-Impressionists?"

"Ye-es, I rather like them."

"What do you think of this?" said Soames, pointing to the Gauguin.

Monsieur Profond protruded his lower lip and short pointed beard.

"Rather fine, I think," he said; "do you want to sell it?"

Soames checked his instinctive "Not particularly"--he would not chaffer
with this alien.

"Yes," he said.

"What do you want for it?"

"What I gave."

"All right," said Monsieur Profond. "I'll be glad to take that small
picture. Post-Impressionists--they're awful dead, but they're amusin'.
I don' care for pictures much, but I've got some, just a small lot."

"What do you care for?"

Monsieur Profond shrugged his shoulders.

"Life's awful like a lot of monkeys scramblin' for empty nuts."

"You're young," said Soames. If the fellow must make a generalization,
he needn't suggest that the forms of property lacked solidity!

"I don' worry," replied Monsieur Profond smiling; "we're born, and we
die. Half the world's starvin'. I feed a small lot of babies out in my
mother's country; but what's the use?