lurged on Whistlers. But I was on hand next morning when that shop
opened, and for a bonus of twenty francs I persuaded the old pirate to
sell me the sketch he was holding for Twombley-Crane. It was a beauty
too; one of the half-dozen Whistler did in working up that portrait of
his mother, perhaps his most famous piece. It's about the only sketch of
the kind, too, not in a public gallery. How Twombley-Crane must have
raved at that Frenchman! So, as the English put it, I did score off him
a bit, you see."

"You sure did," says I. "That picture collection is what he's daffy
over; even more so than over his horses. And right there, J. Bayard, is
your cue."

"Eh?" says he, starin' puzzled.

"Simple as swearin' off taxes," says I. "Send him the sketch."

Mr. Steele gasps. "Wha-a-at!" says he. "Why, I've been offered ten times
what I paid for it, and refused; although there have been times
when--well, you understand. My dear McCabe, that little pencil drawing
is much more to me than a fragment of genius. It stands for
satisfaction. It's something that I own and he wants."

"And there you are," says I. "Been rackin' your nut to dig up something
kind and generous to do for him, ain't you! Well?"

Say, you should have seen the look J. Bayard gives me at that! It's a
mixture of seven diff'rent kinds of surprise, reproach, and indignation.
And the line of argument he puts up too! How he does wiggle and squirm
over the very thought of givin' that picture to Twombley-Crane, after
he'd done the gloat act so long!

But I had the net over Mr. Steele good and fast, and while I was about
it I dragged him over a few bumps; just for the good of his soul, as
Father Reardon would say.

"Oh, come!" says I. "You're makin' the bluff that you want to scatter
deeds of kindness; but when I point one out, right under your nose, you
beef about it like you was bein' frisked for your watch. A hot idea of
bein' an angel of mercy you've got, ain't you? Honest now, in your whole
career, was you ever guilty of wastin' a kind word, or puttin' out the
helpin' hand, if you couldn't see where it might turn a trick for J.
Bayard Steele?"

Makes him wince a little, that jab does, and he flushes up under the
eyes.

"I don't know that I have ever posed either as a philanthropist or a
saint," says he. "If I seem to have assumed a role of that sort now, it
is because it has been thrust upon me, because I have been caught in a
web of circumstances, a ta