stayed to "look round." Strewn upon a rosewood, inlaid table were a hundred
and more etchings. Many were quite small, heads of men and women minutely
and beautifully wrought; others, larger in size, were Biblical subjects;
some were weird and fantastical; one, for example, showed a foreshortened
figure lying before an erection, upon which a skinny bird stood with
outstretched wings, flanked by ugly angel boys blowing trumpets.

[Illustration: TITUS IN A RED CAP AND A GOLD CHAIN

1657. The Wallace Collection, London.]

"The best are sold," said the gentle proprietor.

The enthusiast was about to ask the name of the artist, when he suddenly
caught sight of the _Christ at Emmaus_. His blood stirred in him. That
little shop became an altar of art, and he an initiate. It was not the same
version as the Louvre picture, but only one mind--the mind of Rembrandt,
only one heart--the heart of Rembrandt, could have so felt and stated the
pathos and emotion of that scene. Controlling his excitement, he turned
over the prints and paused, startled, before _Abraham's Sacrifice_. What
was it that moved him? He could hardly say. But he was moved to an
extraordinary degree by that angel standing, with outstretched wings, by
Abraham's side, hiding the kneeling boy's eyes with his hand, staying the
knife at the supreme moment. He turned the prints, and paused again before
_The Prodigal Son_. Some might call the face of the kneeling prodigal
hideous, might assert that the landscape was slight and unfinished, that
the figure in the doorway was too sketchy. Not so our enthusiast. This was
the Prodigal Son, and as for the bending, forgiving father, all that he
could imagine of forgiveness and pity was there realised in a few scratches
of the needle. He turned the prints and withdrew _Tobit Blind_. In every