for the rest of us he'd be a pauper in six months."

Paul Pettingill, to his own intense surprise and, it must be said,
consternation, was engaged to redecorate certain rooms according
to a plan suggested by the tenant. The rising young artist, in a
great flurry of excitement, agreed to do the work for $500, and
then blushed like a schoolgirl when he was informed by the
practical Brewster that the paints and material for one room alone
would cost twice as much.

"Petty, you have no more idea of business than a goat," criticised
Montgomery, and Paul lowered his head in humble confession. "That
man who calcimines your studio could figure on a piece of work
with more intelligence than you reveal. I'll pay $2,500. It's only
a fair price, and I can't afford anything cheap in this place."

"At this rate you won't be able to afford anything," said
Pettingill to himself.

And so it was that Pettingill and a corps of decorators soon
turned the rooms into a confusion of scaffoldings and paint
buckets, out of which in the end emerged something very
distinguished. No one had ever thought Pettingill deficient in
ideas, and this was his opportunity. The only drawback was the
time limit which Brewster so remorselessly fixed. Without that he
felt that he could have done something splendid in the way of
decorative panels--something that would make even the glory of
Puvis de Chavannes turn pallid. With it he was obliged to curb his
turbulent ideas, and he decided that a rich simplicity was the
proper note. The result was gorgeous, but not too gorgeous,--it