aid that his wife
would be glad to make his acquaintance, if he cared to come round. For
Johnny Dromore had assuredly not seemed too happy, under all his
hard-bitten air. Yes! it was but friendly to go again.

Dromore was seated in his long arm-chair, a cigar between his lips, a
pencil in his hand, a Ruff's Guide on his knee; beside him was a large
green book. There was a festive air about him, very different from his
spasmodic gloom of the other day; and he murmured without rising:

"Halo, old man!--glad to see you. Take a pew. Look here!
Agapemone--which d'you think I ought to put her to--San Diavolo or Ponte
Canet?--not more than four crosses of St. Paul. Goin' to get a real good
one from her this time!"

He, who had never heard these sainted names, answered:

"Oh! Ponte Canet, without doubt. But if you're working I'll come in
another time."

"Lord! no! Have a smoke. I'll just finish lookin' out their blood--and
take a pull."

And so Lennan sat down to watch those researches, wreathed in cigar smoke
and punctuated by muttered expletives. They were as sacred and
absorbing, no doubt, as his own efforts to create in clay; for before
Dromore's inner vision was the perfect racehorse--he, too, was creating.
Here was no mere dodge for making money, but a process hallowed by the
peculiar sensation felt when one rubbed the palms of the hands together,
the sensation that accompanied all creative achievement. Once only
Dromore paused to turn his head and say:

"Bally hard, gettin' a taproot right!"

Real Art! How well an artist knew that desperate search after the point
of balance, the central rivet that must be found before a form would come
to life. . . . And he noted that to-day there was no kitten, no flowers,
no sense at all of an extraneous presence--even the picture was
curtained. Had the girl been just a dream--a fancy conjured up by his
craving after youth?

Then he saw that Dromore had dropped the large green book, and was
standing before the fire.

"Nell took to you the other day. But you always were a lady's man.
Remember the girl at Coaster's?"

Coaster's tea-shop, where he would go every afternoon that he had money,
just for the pleasure of looking shyly at a face. Something beautiful to
look at--nothing more! Johnny Dromore would no better understand that
now than when they were at 'Bambury's.' Not the smallest good even
trying to explain! He looked up at the goggling eyes; he hea