ass. Take this rule."

The child caught up the rule and, followed by Fudge, who liked nothing
so well as rummaging, crept among the jars, mirrors, and candelabra
crowding the window, her steps as true as those of a kitten. "Twenty
inches by thirty-one--no, thirty," she laughed back, tucking her little
skirts closer to her shapely limbs so as to clear a tiny table set out
with cups and saucers.

"You're sure it's thirty?" repeated the painter.

"Yes, sir, thirty," and she crept back and laid the rule in O'Day's
hand.

"Thank you, my dear young lady," bowed the old gnome. "It is a pleasure
to be served by one so obliging and bright. And I am glad to tell you,"
he added, turning to O'Day, "that it's a fit--an exact fit. I thought
I was about right. I carry things in my eye. I bought a head once in
Venice, about a foot square, and in Spain three months afterward, on my
way down the hill leading from the Alhambra to the town, there on a wall
outside a bric-a-brac shop hung a frame which I bought for ten francs,
and when I got to Paris and put them together, I'll be hanged if they
didn't fit as if they had been made for each other."

"And I know the shop!" broke out Felix, to Masie's astonishment. "It's
just before you get to the small chapel on the left."

"By cracky, you're right! How long since you were there?"

"Oh, some five years now."

"Picking up things to sell here, I suppose. Spain used to be a great
place for furniture and stuffs; I've got a lot of them still--bought a
whole chest of embroideries once in Seville, or rather, at that hospital
where the big Murillo hangs. You must know that picture--Moses striking
water from the rock--best thing Murillo ever did."

Felix remembered it, and he also remembered many of the important
pictures in the Prado, especially the great Velasquez and the two Goyas,
and that head of Ribera which hung on the line in the second gallery on
the right as you entered. And before the two enthusiasts were aware of
what was going on around them, Masie and Fudge had slipped off to dine
upstairs with her father, Felix and the garrulous old painter still
talking--renewing their memories with a gusto and delight unknown to the
old artist for years.

"And now about that frame!" the gnome at last found time to say. "I've
got so little money that I'd rather swap something for it, if you don't
mind. Come down and see my stuff! It's only in 10th Street--not twenty
minutes' walk. Maybe you