to he paid, the illustrious craftsman departed this life, and was
buried under an ornate tombstone, whose winged cherubs would have
afforded singularly little scope for the exercise of his favourite
art. There remained, however, the widow Pincini, to whom the six
hundred francs were due. And thereupon arose the great crisis in
the life of Henri Deplis, traveller of commerce. The legacy,
under the stress of numerous little calls on its substance, had
dwindled to very insignificant proportions, and when a pressing
wine bill and sundry other current accounts had been paid, there
remained little more than 430 francs to offer to the widow. The
lady was properly indignant, not wholly, as she volubly explained,
on account of the suggested writing-off of 170 francs, but also at
the attempt to depreciate the value of her late husband's
acknowledged masterpiece. In a week's time Deplis was obliged to
reduce his offer to 405 francs, which circumstance fanned the
widow's indignation into a fury. She cancelled the sale of the
work of art, and a few days later Deplis learned with a sense, of
consternation that she had presented it to the municipality of
Bergamo, which had gratefully accepted it. He left the
neighbourhood as unobtrusively as possible, and was genuinely
relieved when his business commands took him to Rome, where he
hoped his identity and that of the famous picture might be lost
sight of.

"But he bore on his back the burden of the dead man's genius. On
presenting himself one day in the steaming corridor of a vapour
bath, he was at once hustled back into his clothes by the
proprietor, who was a North Italian, and who emphatically refused
to allow the celebrated Fall of Icarus to be publicly on view
without the permission of the municipality of Bergamo. Public