Janet.  Well, I said to myself, “He seems mighty sure of himself.  Supposing it’s me that’s wrong?” So one day I quietly took that picture round to Bostock’s, the second-hand furniture man, you know,—­he was a friend of father’s,—­and I asked him what he’d give me for it.  He wouldn’t take it at any price.  Not at any price.  Then I asked him if he’d keep it in his shop and sell it for me on commission.  Well, it stuck in Bostock’s shop—­in his window and out of his window—­for twelve months and more, and then one day the landlord of the Reindeer saw it and he bought it for six shillings, because his public-house was in it.  He was half-drunk.  Mr. Bostock charged me eighteenpence commission, and I bought you two neckties with the four and six, and I said nothing because I didn’t want your feelings to be hurt.  And that reminds me, last week but one they took the landlord of the Reindeer off to the lunatic asylum....  So, you see!

Carve. (Serious, preoccupied.) And where’s the picture now?

Janet.  I shouldn’t be surprised if it’s in the private bar of the
Reindeer.

Carve.  I must get hold of it.

Janet.  Albert, you aren’t vexed, are you?

Carve. (Forcing himself to adopt a light tone.) How could I be vexed with two neckties to the good?  But don’t do it again, Jane.  I shall go round to the Reindeer this morning and have a drink.  If that picture ever found its way to a Bond Street expert’s, the consequences might be awkward—­devilish awkward.  Because it’s dated, you see.

Janet.  No, I don’t see.  I shouldn’t have said a word about it, only I wanted to save you from being disappointed later on.

Carve. (In a new casual tone.) Just get me my cash-box, will you?

(Janet at once produces the cash-box from a drawer.)

Janet.  And what now?  I’m not broke yet, you great silly. (Laughs, but is rather intimidated by Carve’s air.)

Carve. (Having unlocked box and taken a bag from it.) You see that? 
(He showers gold out of it.) Well, count it!

Janet.  Gracious!  Ten—­fifteen—­eighteen—­twenty?—­two—­four—­twenty-six pounds.  These your savings?

Carve.  That’s what I’ve earned with painting, just at odd times.

Janet.  Really? (Carve nods.) You could knock me down with a feather!

Carve.  I’ll tell you.  You know the framemaker’s next to Salmon and Gluckstein’s.  I buy my colours and canvases and things there.  They cost money.  I owed the chap two pounds once, and one morning, in the shop, when I was opening my box to put some new tubes in, he saw one of my pictures all wet.  He offered of his own accord to take it for what I owed him.  I wouldn’t let him have it.  But I was rather hard up, so I said I’d do him another instead, and I did him one in a different style and not half as good, and of course he liked it even better.  Since then, I’ve done him quite a few.  It isn’t that I’ve needed the money; but it’s a margin, and colours and frames, etc. come to a dickens of a lot in a year.