“That?  Oh—­a sketch of a young lady,” stammered Stanwell, flushing at the imbecility of his reply.  “It’s Miss Arran, you know,” he added, “the sister of my neighbour here, the sculptor.”

“Sgulpture?  There’s no market for modern sgulpture except tombstones,” said Shepson disparagingly, passing on as if he included the sister’s portrait in his condemnation of her brother’s trade.

Stanwell smiled, but more at himself than Shepson.  How could he ever have supposed that the gross fool would see anything in his sketch of Kate Arran?  He stood aside, straining after detachment, while the dealer continued his round of exploration, waddling up to the canvases on the walls, prodding with his stick at those stacked in corners, prying and peering sideways like a great bird rummaging for seed.  He seemed to find little nutriment in the course of his search, for the sounds he emitted expressed a weary distaste for misdirected effort, and he completed his round without having thought it worth while to draw a single canvas from its obscurity.

As his visits always had the same result, Stanwell was reduced to wondering why he had come again; but Shepson was not the man to indulge in vague roamings through the field of art, and it was safe to conclude that his purpose would in due course reveal itself.  His tour brought him at length face to face with the painter, where he paused, clasping his plump gloved hands behind his back, and shaking an admonitory head.

“Gleffer—­very gleffer, of course—­I suppose you’ll let me know when you want to sell anything?”

“Let you know?” gasped Stanwell, to whom the room grew so glowingly hot that he thought for a moment the janitor must have made up the fire.

Shepson gave a dry laugh.  “Vell, it doesn’t sdrike me that you want to now—­doing this kind of thing, you know!” And he swept a comprehensive hand about the studio.

“Ah,” said Stanwell, who could not keep a note of flatness out of his laugh.

“See here, Mr. Sdanwell, vot do you do it for?  If you do it for yourself and the other fellows, vell and good—­only don’t ask me round.  I sell pictures, I don’t theorize about them.  Ven you vant to sell, gome to me with what my gustomers vant.  You can do it—­you’re smart enough.  You can do most anything.  Vere’s dat bortrait of Gladys Glyde dat you showed at the Fake Club last autumn?  Dat little thing in de Romney sdyle?  Dat vas a little shem, now,” exclaimed Mr. Shepson, whose pronunciation became increasingly Semitic in moments of excitement.

Stanwell stared.  Called upon a few months previously to contribute to an exhibition of skits on well-known artists, he had used the photograph of a favourite music-hall “star” as the basis of a picture in the pseudo-historical style affected by the popular portrait-painters of the day.

“That thing?” he said contemptuously.  “How on earth did you happen to see it?”