Carve.  But I’d completely altered my style.  I altered it on purpose.

Ebag. (Shaking his head.) My dear sir, there was once a well-known man who stood six feet ten inches high.  He shaved off his beard and dyed his hair, and invented a very ingenious costume, and went to a Fancy Dress Ball as Tom Thumb.  Strange to say, his disguise was penetrated immediately.

Carve.  Who are you?

Ebag.  My name is Ebag—­New Bond Street.

Carve.  What!  You’re my old dealer!

Ebag.  And I’m delighted at last to make your acquaintance, sir.  It wasn’t until I’d bought several of those small canvases from the Putney man that I began to inquire closely into their origin.  As a general rule it’s a mistake for a dealer to be too curious.  But my curiosity got the better of me.  And when I found out that the pictures were being produced week by week, fresh, then I knew I was on the edge of some mystery.

Carve. (Awkwardly.) The fact is, perhaps, I ought to explain.

Ebag.  Pardon me.  I ask nothing.  It isn’t my affair.  I felt certain, solely from the evidence of what I was buying, that the great painter who was supposed to be buried in Westminster Abbey, and whose somewhat premature funeral I attended, must be alive and painting vigorously.  I wanted the assurance from your lips.  I have it.  The rest does not concern me—­at any rate, for the moment.

Carve.  I’ll say this—­you know a picture when you see it.

Ebag. (Proudly.) I am an expert, nothing else.

Carve.  All right!  Well, I’ll only ask you to persevere in your discretion.  As you say, it isn’t your affair.  Thank goodness, I didn’t put a date on any of these things.  I won’t sell any more.  I’d take an oath never to paint again, only I know I should go and break it next week.  I shall rely on this famous discretion of yours to say nothing—­nothing whatever.

Ebag.  I’m afraid it’s too late.

Carve.  How too late?

Ebag.  I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to state publicly that you are Ilam Carve, and that there must have been—­er—­some misapprehension, somewhere, over that funeral.

Carve. (Aghast.) Publicly?  Why?

Ebag.  It’s like this, I’ve been selling those pictures to Texel in New York.  You remember, he’s always been one of your principal collectors.  He’s getting old, and he’s half-blind, but he still buys.  Now, I rely on my judgment, and I guaranteed those pictures to be genuine Carves.  Well, somebody over there must have had suspicions.

Carve.  What does that matter?  There isn’t a date on any of them.

Ebag.  Just so.  But in one of those pictures there’s most distinctly a taxi-cab.  It isn’t a private motor car.  It’s a taxi.

Carve.  And if there is?  No law against painting a taxi, I hope!