I did so, making my own likeness quite a pleasant relief to the ugliness of my brother-in-law’s.  It was my intention to send both portraits to the Royal Academy Exhibition, to get custom, and show the public generally what I could do.  I knew the institution with which I had to deal, and called my own likeness, Portrait of a Nobleman.

That dexterous appeal to the tenderest feelings of my distinguished countrymen very nearly succeeded.  The portrait of Mr. Batterbury (much the more carefully-painted picture of the two) was summarily turned out.  The Portrait of a Nobleman was politely reserved to be hung up, if the Royal Academicians could possibly find room for it.  They could not.  So that picture also vanished back into the obscurity of the artist’s easel.  Weak and well-meaning people would have desponded under these circumstances; but your genuine Rogue is a man of elastic temperament, not easily compressible under any pressure of disaster.  I sent the portrait of Mr. Batterbury to the house of that distinguished patron, and the Portrait of a Nobleman to the Pawnbroker’s.  After this I had plenty of elbow-room in the studio, and could walk up and down briskly, smoking my pipe, and thinking about what I should do next.

I had observed that the generous friend and vagabond brother artist, whose lodger I now was, never seemed to be in absolute want of money; and yet the walls of his studio informed me that nobody bought his pictures.  There hung all his great works, rejected by the Royal Academy, and neglected by the patrons of Art; and there, nevertheless, was he, blithely plying the brush; not rich, it is true, but certainly never without money enough in his pocket for the supply of all his modest wants.  Where did he find his resources?  I determined to ask him the question the very next time he came to the studio.

“Dick,” I said (we called each other by our Christian names), “where do you get your money?”

“Frank,” he answered, “what makes you ask that question?”

“Necessity,” I proceeded.  “My stock of money is decreasing, and I don’t know how to replenish it.  My pictures have been turned out of the exhibition-rooms; nobody comes to sit to me; I can’t make a farthing; and I must try another line in the Arts, or leave your studio.  We are old friends now.  I’ve paid you honestly week by week; and if you can oblige me, I think you ought.  You earn money somehow.  Why can’t I?”

“Are you at all particular?” asked Dick.

“Not in the least,” I answered.

Dick nodded, and looked pleased; handed me my hat, and put on his own.

“You are just the sort of man I like,” he remarked, “and I would sooner trust you than any one else I know.  You ask how I contrive to earn money, seeing that all my pictures are still in my own possession.  My dear fellow, whenever my pockets are empty, and I want a ten-pound note to put into them, I make an Old Master.”