or smashing?"

"No, Mr. Click. Don't be uneasy."

"Nor yet forg--" Mr. Click checked himself, and added, "counterfeiting
anything, for instance?"

"No, Mr. Click. I am lawfully in the Art line--Fine-Art line--but I can
say no more."

"Ah! Under a species of star? A kind of malignant spell? A sort of a
gloomy destiny? A cankerworm pegging away at your vitals in secret, as
well as I make it out?" said Mr. Click, eyeing me with some admiration.

I told Mr. Click that was about it, if we came to particulars; and I
thought he appeared rather proud of me.

Our conversation had brought us to a crowd of people, the greater part
struggling for a front place from which to see something on the pavement,
which proved to be various designs executed in coloured chalks on the
pavement stones, lighted by two candles stuck in mud sconces. The
subjects consisted of a fine fresh salmon's head and shoulders, supposed
to have been recently sent home from the fishmonger's; a moonlight night
at sea (in a circle); dead game; scroll-work; the head of a hoary hermit
engaged in devout contemplation; the head of a pointer smoking a pipe;
and a cherubim, his flesh creased as in infancy, going on a horizontal
errand against the wind. All these subjects appeared to me to be
exquisitely done.

On his knees on one side of this gallery, a shabby person of modest