In the days when the New Gallery was new, a picture, signed by the unknown name of Priam Farll, was exhibited there, and aroused such terrific interest that for several months no conversation among cultured persons was regarded as complete without some reference to it.  That the artist was a very great painter indeed was admitted by every one; the only question which cultured persons felt it their duty to settle was whether he was the greatest painter that ever lived or merely the greatest painter since Velasquez.  Cultured persons might have continued to discuss that nice point to the present hour, had it not leaked out that the picture had been refused by the Royal Academy.  The culture of London then at once healed up its strife and combined to fall on the Royal Academy as an institution which had no right to exist.  The affair even got into Parliament and occupied three minutes of the imperial legislature.  Useless for the Royal Academy to argue that it had overlooked the canvas, for its dimensions were seven feet by five; it represented a policeman, a simple policeman, life-size, and it was not merely the most striking portrait imaginable, but the first appearance of the policeman in great art; criminals, one heard, instinctively fled before it.  No!  The Royal Academy really could not argue that the work had been overlooked.  And in truth the Royal Academy did not argue accidental negligence.  It did not argue about its own right to exist.  It did not argue at all.  It blandly went on existing, and taking about a hundred and fifty pounds a day in shillings at its polished turnstiles.  No details were obtainable concerning Priam Farll, whose address was Poste Restante, St. Martin’s-le-Grand.  Various collectors, animated by deep faith in their own judgment and a sincere desire to encourage British art, were anxious to purchase the picture for a few pounds, and these enthusiasts were astonished and pained to learn that Priam Farll had marked a figure of L1,000—­the price of a rare postage stamp.

In consequence the picture was not sold; and after an enterprising journal had unsuccessfully offered a reward for the identification of the portrayed policeman, the matter went gently to sleep while the public employed its annual holiday as usual in discussing the big gooseberry of matrimonial relations.

Every one naturally expected that in the following year the mysterious Priam Farll would, in accordance with the universal rule for a successful career in British art, contribute another portrait of another policeman to the New Gallery—­and so on for about twenty years, at the end of which period England would have learnt to recognize him as its favourite painter of policemen.  But Priam Farll contributed nothing to the New Gallery.  He had apparently forgotten the New Gallery:  which was considered to be ungracious, if not ungrateful, on his part.  Instead, he adorned the Paris salon with a large seascape showing penguins in the foreground.  Now these