Archie turned to me with a sort of frozen calm.

"Reggie, would you mind stepping into the kitchen and asking Julia for
this week's _Funny Slices_? I know she has it."

He was right. She unearthed it from a cupboard. I trotted back with it
to the sitting room. Archie took the paper from me, and held it out to
his wife, Doughnuts uppermost.

"Look!" he said.

She looked.

"I do them. I have done them every week for three years. No, don't
speak yet. Listen. This is where all my money came from, all the money
I lost when B. and O. P. Rails went smash. And this is where the money
came from to buy 'The Coming of Summer.' It wasn't Brackett who bought
it; it was myself."

Mrs. Archie was devouring the Doughnuts with wide-open eyes. I caught a
glimpse of them myself, and only just managed not to laugh, for it was
the set of pictures where Pa Doughnut tries to fix the electric light,
one of the very finest things dear old Archie had ever done.

"I don't understand," she said.

"I draw these things. I have sold my soul."

"Archie!"