_Kensington_."

"The Jenkins story?" I said. "How did you come to see it?"

"Then send me the _Kensington_," he answered. There was a touch of
sourness in his tone, and I remembered that the _Kensington_ I had seen
had been ballasted with seven goodly pages by Callan himself--seven
unreadable packed pages of a serial.

"As I was saying," Callan began again, "you ought to know me very well,
and I suppose you are acquainted with my books. As for the rest, I will
give you what material you want."

"But, my dear Callan," I said, "I've never tried my hand at that sort of
thing."

Callan silenced me with a wave of his hand.

"It struck both Fox and myself that your--your 'Jenkins' was just what
was wanted," he said; "of course, that was a study of a kind of
broken-down painter. But it was well done."

I bowed my head. Praise from Callan was best acknowledged in silence.

"You see, what we want, or rather what Fox wants," he explained, "is a
kind of series of studies of celebrities _chez eux_. Of course,
they are not broken down. But if you can treat them as you treated Jenkins
--get them in their studies, surrounded by what in their case stands for
the broken lay figures and the faded serge curtains--it will be exactly the
thing. It will be a new line, or rather--what is a great deal better,