When we reached the back part of the showroom, down-stairs, he brought
out an unframed picture about three feet long and two high, and placed
it in a favorable light. "There," said he, "is a picture which will suit
you. It is what we call a reversible landscape, and is copied from the
only genuine picture of the kind in the world. It is just as good as two
pictures. In this position, you see, a line of land stretches across the
middle of the picture, with trees, houses, and figures, with a light sky
above and a lake, darker in hue, below. Everything on the land is
reflected accurately in the water. It is a landscape in morning light.
Turn it upside down, so, and it is an evening scene; darkening sky
above, light water beneath; the morning star, which you saw faintly
glimmering in the other picture, is now the reflection of the evening
star."

I do not pretend to be a judge of pictures, but I fancy I appreciate an
original idea when I see it, and I thought that this picture might
answer my purpose.

"What is the price of the painting?" I asked.

"Well, sir," said he, "to you, as a man of influence, I will fix the
price of this great painting, from a comparatively unknown work of
Gaspar Poussin, at four dollars and a half."

In spite of what I had seen of the facilities possessed by this
establishment for producing cheap work, I must confess that I was
surprised at the smallness of the sum asked for an oil-painting of that
size; I had expected to give forty or fifty dollars. But, although I am
not a judge of paintings, I am a business man, and accustomed to make