about half-an-inch too long for the canvas, but the gap was scarcely
observable. On the frame was a large notice, 'For sale.' And around it
were the cigars of two hemispheres, from Syak Whiffs at a penny each to
precious Murias; and cigarettes of every allurement; and the
multitudinous fragments of all advertised tobaccos; and meerschaums and
briars, and patent pipes and diagrams of their secret machinery; and
cigarette-and cigar-holders laid on plush; and pocket receptacles in
aluminium and other precious metals.

Shining there, the picture had a most incongruous appearance. He blushed
as he stood on the refuge. It seemed to him that the mere incongruity of
the spectacle must inevitably attract crowds, gradually blocking the
street, and that when some individual not absolutely a fool in art, had
perceived the quality of the picture--well, then the trouble of public
curiosity and of journalistic inquisitiveness would begin. He wondered
that he could ever have dreamed of concealing his identity on a canvas.
The thing simply shouted 'Priam Farll,' every inch of it. In any
exhibition of pictures in London, Paris, Rome, Milan, Munich, New York
or Boston, it would have been the cynosure, the target of ecstatic
admirations. It was just such another work as his celebrated 'Pont
d'Austerlitz,' which hung in the Luxembourg. And neither a frame of
'chemical gold,' nor the extremely variegated coloration of the other
merchandise on sale could kill it.

However, there were no signs of a crowd. People passed to and fro, just
as though there had not been a masterpiece within ten thousand miles of
them. Once a servant girl, a loaf of bread in her red arms, stopped to
glance at the window, but in an instant she was gone, running.

Priam's first instinctive movement had been to plunge into the shop, and