black revolver from his left hand to his right. The faithful sunlight
that puts everything into place, gives his whiskers and the hair on the
back of his tanned wrist just the colour of the copper pot, the bear's
fur and the trampled pines. For the rest, there is the blue sea beyond
the awnings.

Three years' hard work, beside the special knowledge of a lifetime,
would be needed to copy--even to copy--this picture. Mr. So-and-so,
R.A., could undoubtedly draw the bird; Mr. Such-another (equally R.A.)
the bear; and scores of gentlemen the still life; but who would be the
man to pull the whole thing together and make it the riotous, tossing
cataract of colour and life that it is? And when it was done, some
middle-aged person from the provinces, who had never seen a pineapple
out of a plate, or a _kris_ out of the South Kensington, would say that
it did not remind him of something that it ought to remind him of, and
therefore that it was bad. If the gallery could be bequeathed to the
nation, something might, perhaps, be gained, but the nation would
complain of the draughts and the absence of chairs. But no matter. In
another world we shall see certain gentlemen set to tickle the backs of
Circe's swine through all eternity. Also, they will have to tickle with
their bare hands.

The Japanese rooms, visited and set in order for the second time, hold
more pictures than could be described in a month; but most of them are
small and, excepting always the light, within human compass. One,
however, might be difficult. It was an unexpected gift, picked up in a
Tokio bye-street after dark. Half the town was out for a walk, and all
the people's clothes were indigo, and so were the shadows, and most of
the paper-lanterns were drops of blood red. By the light of smoking
oil-lamps people were selling flowers and shrubs--wicked little dwarf