hundred pounds, and,
cigar in mouth, handed it to Priam, who tried to take it with a casual
air and did not succeed. It was signed 'Parfitts'.'

"I dare say you have heard that I'm now the sole proprietor of this
place," said Mr. Oxford through his cigar.

"Really!" said Priam, feeling just as nervous as an inexperienced youth.

Then Mr. Oxford led Priam over thick carpets to a saloon where electric
light was thrown by means of reflectors on to a small but incomparable
band of pictures. Mr. Oxford had not exaggerated. They did give pleasure
to Priam. They were not the pictures one sees every day, nor once a
year. There was the finest Delacroix of its size that Priam had ever met
with; also a Vermeer that made it unnecessary to visit the Ryks Museum.
And on the more distant wall, to which Mr. Oxford came last, in a place
of marked honour, was an evening landscape of Volterra, a hill-town in
Italy. The bolts of Priam's very soul started when he caught sight of
that picture. On the lower edge of the rich frame were two words in
black lettering: 'Priam Farll.' How well he remembered painting it! And
how masterfully beautiful it was!

"Now that," said Mr. Oxford, "is in my humble opinion one of the finest
Farlls in existence. What do you think, Mr. Leek?"

Priam paused. "I agree with you," said he.

"Farll," said Mr. Oxford, "is about the only modern painter that can
stand the company that that picture has in this room, eh?"

Priam blushed. "Yes," he said.

There is a considerable difference, in various matters, between Putney
and Volterra; but the picture of Volterra and the picture of Putney High
Street were obviously, strikingly, incontestably, by the same hand; one
could not but perceive the same brush-work, the same masses, the same
manner of seeing and of grasping, in a word the same dazzling and
austere translation of nature. The resemblance jumped at one and shook
one by the shoulders. It could not have escaped even an auctioneer. Yet
Mr. Oxford did not refer to it. He seemed quite blind to it. All he said
was, as they left the room, and Priam finished his rather monosyllabic
praise--

"Yes, that's the little collection I've just got together, and I am very
proud to have shown it to you. Now I want you to come and lunch with me
at my club. Please do. I should be desolated if you refused."

Priam did not care a halfpenny about the desolation of Mr. Oxford; and
he most sincerely objected to lunch at Mr. Oxf