mind you--an old line treated in a slightly, very slightly different
way. That's what the public wants."

"Ah, yes," I said, "that's what the public wants. But all the same, it's
been done time out of mind before. Why, I've seen photographs of you and
your arm-chair and your pen-wiper and so on, half a score of times in the
sixpenny magazines."

Callan again indicated bland superiority with a wave of his hand.

"You undervalue yourself," he said.

I murmured--"Thanks."

"This is to be--not a mere pandering to curiosity--but an attempt to get
at the inside of things--to get the atmosphere, so to speak; not merely
to catalogue furniture."

He was quoting from the prospectus of the new paper, and then cleared
his throat for the utterance of a tremendous truth.

"Photography--is not--Art," he remarked.

The fantastic side of our colloquy began to strike me.

"After all," I thought to myself, "why shouldn't that girl have played
at being a denizen of another sphere? She did it ever so much better
than Callan. She did it too well, I suppose."

"The price is very decent," Callan chimed in. "I don't know how much per