"It's a pity you were not here a few minutes ago. I have just bought a
picture. You might have put the thing through for me."

"Bought a picture?" said Mr. Tristram, looking vaguely round at the
walls. "Why, do they sell them?"

"I mean a copy."

"Oh, I see. These," said Mr. Tristram, nodding at the Titians and
Vandykes, "these, I suppose, are originals."

"I hope so," cried Newman. "I don't want a copy of a copy."

"Ah," said Mr. Tristram, mysteriously, "you can never tell. They
imitate, you know, so deucedly well. It's like the jewelers, with their
false stones. Go into the Palais Royal, there; you see 'Imitation' on
half the windows. The law obliges them to stick it on, you know; but you
can't tell the things apart. To tell the truth," Mr. Tristram continued,
with a wry face, "I don't do much in pictures. I leave that to my wife."

"Ah, you have got a wife?"

"Didn't I mention it? She's a very nice woman; you must know her. She's
up there in the Avenue d'Iena."

"So you are regularly fixed--house and children and all."

"Yes, a tip-top house and a couple of youngsters."