unabashed Michael.
"Nothing like a little judicious levity. But it's quite needless to
discuss. If you mean to follow my advice, come on, and let us get the
piano at once. If you don't, just drop me the word, and I'll leave you
to deal with the whole thing according to your better judgment."

"You know perfectly well that I depend on you entirely," returned
Pitman. "But O, what a night is before me with that--horror in my
studio! How am I to think of it on my pillow?"

"Well, you know, my piano will be there too," said Michael. "That'll
raise the average."

An hour later a cart came up the lane, and the lawyer's piano--a
momentous Broadwood grand--was deposited in Mr. Pitman's studio.

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY

Punctually at eight o'clock next morning the lawyer rattled (according
to previous appointment) on the studio door. He found the artist sadly
altered for the worse--bleached, bloodshot, and chalky--a man upon
wires, the tail of his haggard eye still wandering to the closet. Nor
was the professor of drawing less inclined to wonder at his friend.
Michael was usually attired in the height of fashion, with a certain
mercantile brilliancy best described perhaps as stylish; nor could
anything be said against him, as a rule, but that he looked a trifle too
like a wedding guest to be quite a gentleman. To-day he had fallen
altogether from these heights. He wore a flannel shirt of washed-out
shepherd's tartan, and a suit of reddish tweeds, of the colour known to
tailors as "heather mixture"; his neckcloth was black, and tied loosely
in a sailor's knot; a rusty ulster partly concealed these advantages;
and his feet were shod with rough walking boots. His hat was an old soft
felt, which he removed with a flourish as he entered.

"Here I am, William Dent!" he cried, and drawing from his pocket two
little wisps of reddish hair, he held them to his cheeks like
side-whiskers and danced about the studio with the filmy graces of a
ballet-girl.

Pitman laughed sadly. "I should never have known you," said he.

"Nor were you intended to," returned Michael, replacing his false
whiskers in his pocket. "Now we must overhaul you and your wardrobe, and
disguise you up to the nines."

"Disguise!" cried the artist. "Must I indeed disguise myself? Has it
come to that?"

"My dear creature," returned his companion, "disguise is the spice of
life. What is life, passionately exclaimed a Fren