the fuel. 'I suppose you have come to grief somehow.'

'There is no expression strong enough,' said the artist. 'Mr
Semitopolis's statue has not turned up, and I am afraid I shall be
answerable for the money; but I think nothing of that--what I fear, my
dear Mr Finsbury, what I fear--alas that I should have to say it!
is exposure. The Hercules was to be smuggled out of Italy; a thing
positively wrong, a thing of which a man of my principles and in my
responsible position should have taken (as I now see too late) no part
whatever.'

'This sounds like very serious work,' said the lawyer. 'It will require
a great deal of drink, Pitman.'

'I took the liberty of--in short, of being prepared for you,' replied
the artist, pointing to a kettle, a bottle of gin, a lemon, and glasses.
Michael mixed himself a grog, and offered the artist a cigar.

'No, thank you,' said Pitman. 'I used occasionally to be rather partial
to it, but the smell is so disagreeable about the clothes.'

'All right,' said the lawyer. 'I am comfortable now. Unfold your tale.'

At some length Pitman set forth his sorrows. He had gone today to
Waterloo, expecting to receive the colossal Hercules, and he had
received instead a barrel not big enough to hold Discobolus; yet
the barrel was addressed in the hand (with which he was perfectly
acquainted) of his Roman correspondent. What was stranger still, a case
had arrived by the same train, large enough and heavy enough to
contain the Hercules; and this case had been taken to an address now