rnalist, "of the story of Henri Deplis.
Have I ever told it you?"

Clovis shook his head.

"Henri Deplis was by birth a native of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg.
On maturer reflection he became a commercial traveller. His business
activities frequently took him beyond the limits of the Grand Duchy,
and he was stopping in a small town of Northern Italy when news reached
him from home that a legacy from a distant and deceased relative had
fallen to his share.

"It was not a large legacy, even from the modest standpoint of Henri
Deplis, but it impelled him towards some seemingly harmless
extravagances. In particular it led him to patronize local art as
represented by the tattoo-needles of Signor Andreas Pincini. Signor
Pincini was, perhaps, the most brilliant master of tattoo craft that
Italy had ever known, but his circumstances were decidedly
impoverished, and for the sum of six hundred francs he gladly undertook
to cover his client's back, from the collar-bone down to the waistline,
with a glowing representation of the Fall of Icarus. The design, when
finally developed, was a slight disappointment to Monsieur Deplis, who
had suspected Icarus of being a fortress taken by Wallenstein in the
Thirty Years' War, but he was more than satisfied with the execution of
the work, which was acclaimed by all who had the privilege of seeing it
as Pincini's masterpiece.

"It was his greatest effort, and his last. Without even waiting to be
paid, the illustrious craftsman departed this life, and was buried
under an ornate tombstone, whose winged cherubs would have afforded
singularly little scope for the exercise of his favourite art. There
remained, however, the widow Pincini, to whom the six hundred francs
were due. And thereupon arose the great crisis in the life of Henri
Deplis, traveller of commerce. The legacy, under the stress of
numerous little calls on its substance, had dwindled to very
insignificant proportions, and when a pressing wine bill and sundry
other current accounts had been paid, there remained little more than
430 francs to offer to the widow. The lady was properly indignant, not
wholly, as she volubly explained, on account of the suggested
writing-off of 170 francs, but also at the attempt to depreciate the
value of her late husband's acknowledged masterpiece. In a week's time
Deplis was obliged to reduce his offer to 405 francs, which
circumstance fanned the widow's indignation into a fury. She canc