turn to it I have no doubt you will find that time has done you no
harm."

He tried to be polite and entertaining, but he was glad when Eugene went
away again.

The latter turned out into the street disconsolate. He could see how
things were. He was down and out for the present and would have to wait.

CHAPTER XVIII

The next thing was to see what could be done with the other art dealers
and the paintings that were left. There were quite a number of them. If
he could get any reasonable price at all he ought to be able to live
quite awhile--long enough anyhow to get on his feet again. When they
came to his quiet room and were unpacked by him in a rather shamefaced
and disturbed manner and distributed about, they seemed wonderful
things. Why, if the critics had raved over them and M. Charles had
thought they were so fine, could they not be sold? Art dealers would
surely buy them! Still, now that he was on the ground again and could
see the distinctive art shops from the sidewalks his courage failed him.
They were not running after pictures. Exceptional as he might be, there
were artists in plenty--good ones. He could not run to other well known
art dealers very well for his work had become identified with the house
of Kellner and Son. Some of the small dealers might buy them but they
would not buy them all--probably one or two at the most, and that at a
sacrifice. What a pass to come to!--he, Eugene Witla, who three years
before had been in the heyday of his approaching prosperity, wondering
as he stood in the room of a gloomy side-street house how he was going
to raise money to live through the summer, and how he was going to sell
the paintings which had seemed the substance of his fortune but two
years before. He decided that he would ask several of the middle class
dealers whether they would not come and look at what he had to show. To
a number of the smaller dealers in Fourth, Sixth, Eighth Avenues and
elsewhere he would offer to sell several outright when necessity
pinched. Still he had to raise money soon. Angela could not be left at
Blackwood indefinitely.

He went to Jacob Bergman, Henry LaRue, Pottle Freres and asked if they
would be interested to see what he had. Henry Bergman, who was his own
manager, recalled his name at once. He had seen the exhibition but was
not eager. He asked curiously how the pictures of the first and second
exhibitions had sold, how many there were of them, what prices they