ind a seat." He turned to his trunk,
hoping the little man would sight his head in the mirror. When he again
looked up the hair was in perfect adjustment, and Teevan beamed on him
from an armchair.

"Your father," he began, "I seem to recall your saying it--was a
painter. Doubtless he taught you much."

"I studied with him there in the mountains till he died. I've nothing
left of his but this portrait of my mother."

He took the unframed canvas from the tray of the trunk and held it
before his guest.

"Do you get the right light there?"

It had been a bad quarter of an hour for Ewing, and, as he adjusted the
picture, he felt a moment's satisfaction in having weathered it so
plausibly. And now that the curious little gentleman seemed restored, it
was pleasant to anticipate his cultured appreciation of that work of art
which was the boy's chief treasure.

"There isn't any shine across it now, is there?" he asked, and looked up
with a shy, proud, waiting smile.

But the agitations that had gone before were as nothing to what now
passed in front of his dismayed eyes. One moment his guest hung staring
at the canvas with a goblin horror; then, uttering a kind of sob, he
shot incontinently out of the door.

The harried Ewing dropped the picture and rushed in pursuit. He came up
with the little man at the head of the stairs. He was trembling, and his
face was ashen gray; but after a few deep breaths he smiled and waved a
hand jauntily to indicate humorous despair. It seemed to say, "I am
frequently like this--it's annoying past words." He spoke of needing a
restorative and suggested an advisable haste in the direction of the
cafe.

"They've some choice old cognac downstairs. Suppose we chat over a bit
of it. I'm rather done up. These absurd attacks of mine react on the
heart. A noggin of brandy will fetch me about. You'll come?"

They were presently at a table in the hotel cafe.

"We've the room to ourselves," said Teevan genially. "Delightful old
place, this; restful, reminiscent, mellow--and generally empty. I detest
the cheap glitter of those uptown places with their rowdy throngs. They
make me feel like a fish in a fiddle box, as our French cousins say.
You'll have soda with yours?"

Teevan drank his own brandy neat, and at once refilled his glass.

"Now for a chat about yourself, my young friend--for surely only a
friend could have borne with me as tenderly as you have this evening.
You're a fellow of prom