"Who is this Priam Farll?"

Though the query remained unanswered, Priam Farll's reputation was
henceforward absolutely assured, and this in spite of the fact that he
omitted to comply with the regulations ordained by English society for
the conduct of successful painters. He ought, first, to have taken the
elementary precaution of being born in the United States. He ought,
after having refused all interviews for months, to have ultimately
granted a special one to a newspaper with the largest circulation. He
ought to have returned to England, grown a mane and a tufted tail, and
become the king of beasts; or at least to have made a speech at a
banquet about the noble and purifying mission of art. Assuredly he ought
to have painted the portrait of his father or grandfather as an artisan,
to prove that he was not a snob. But no! Not content with making each of
his pictures utterly different from all the others, he neglected all the
above formalities--and yet managed to pile triumph on triumph. There are
some men of whom it may be said that, like a punter on a good day, they
can't do wrong. Priam Farll was one such. In a few years he had become a
legend, a standing side-dish of a riddle. No one knew him; no one saw
him; no one married him. Constantly abroad, he was ever the subject of
conflicting rumours. Parfitts themselves, his London agents, knew naught
of him but his handwriting--on the backs of cheques in four figures.
They sold an average of five large and five small pictures for him every
year. These pictures arrived out of the unknown and the cheques went
into the unknown.

Young artists, mute in admiration before the masterpieces from his brush
which enriched all the national galleries of Europe (save, of course,
that in Trafalgar Square), dreamt of him, worshipped him, and quarrelled
fiercely about him, as the very symbol of glory, luxury and flawless