Brothers. He's in the grocery department, and earnin' good money, and I've seen such a heap of artists sittin' on the pavement, with the risk any moment of the rain washin' all the pictures out; don't you think I was right, sir?" "Quite right," said Matt, heartily. Mrs. Lipchild thereupon produced a bottle of brandy and what she called a "seedy-cake" from a cupboard under a sideboard, and insisted on Matt's partaking of the same. To refuse would pain her, to accept would refresh him, so he accepted. In the conversation which ensued it transpired that Mrs. Lipchild's daughter was about to marry a young man from Brown Brothers (haberdashery department), that the young couple were now furnishing, and that it had occurred to Mrs. Lipchild that they might get their parlor pictures from Matt instead of from a shop, if they could get them any cheaper. So Matt and his art patroness remounted again to the bed-room studio and haggled over prices, Mrs. Lipchild pointing out that his pictures were far inferior to shop pictures, not only by their unsympathetic subjects, but by their absence of frames and glass, and that she could get much bigger sizes than any of his for five shillings apiece. But as it came to be understood that ready money would not be required, and that the price was to be reckoned off the rent, Mrs. Lipchild ultimately departed in possession of a month's worth of pictures-six of the prettiest landscapes and ladies in the collection, with Rapper's "Library" thrown in. The poetic street-scenes she scorned, much to Matt's relief, for he set no value on the earlier Nova Scotian work she had carried off. This was Matt's first sale of pictures in the great Metropolis of Art. Considerably exhilarated by the change in his fortunes, and revived by the brandy and the "seedy-cake,” he reviewed the situation again, proof even against Billy's letter, which he put by for later consideration. He found himself actually smiling, for a phrase of Cornpepper's kept vibrating in his brain"Art's neither moral nor immoral, any more than it's lunar or calendar." Mrs. Lipchild's last words had been: "Very well, we'll reckon it a month," and he wondered whimsically whether the month was to be lunar or calendar. Under the impulse of these gayer sentiments, he resolved to raise money by pawning whatever he could part with, and by persisting in the search for an adventurous dealer; and reflecting that, after all, the tailor would be satisfied with an instalment, he wound himself up to the pitch of applying to Herbert by letter, though he could not bring himself to a verbal request. MY DEAR HERBERT,-I am sorry to bother you again, but if you could let me have only five guineas to offer the tailor I should be very grateful. I hope soon to find work, or sell some things; and you will be pleased to hear that I have got over the difficulty with the rent-at least for the Yours sincerely, moment. MATT STRANG. P.S.-Don't put yourself out if you cannot. You have been very kind to me, and I shall never forget it. I dare say I shall pull through somehow." Matt carried this request to the pillar-box through the stuffy splendor of a summer night in Holborn back streets. As he heard the slight thud of the letter in the box he had a sense of something achieved, and had no compunction in spending one of his nine remaining pennies on his supper of "baked fagot" in a muggy pork-butcher's shop. Nightmare, followed by a giddy uprising with furred tongue and aching forehead, was the sequel of this devil-may-care diet, and early in the afternoon the nightmare seemed to resume its riot in the guise of a reply from Herbert. DEAR MATT,-What in the name of all that is unholy made you send that letter to my house instead of to the club? There's been a devil of a row. The Old Gentleman opened the letter. He pretends he did so without noticing, as it came mixed up with his, and so few come for me to the house. When I got down to breakfast the mater was in tears and the Old Gentleman in blazes. Of course, he'd misread it altogether-imagined you wanted to borrow money instead of to get it back (isn't it comical? It's almost an idea for a farce for our dramatic society), and insisted you had been draining me all along (you did write you were sorry to bother me again, you old duffer). Of course I did my best to dispel the misconception, but it was no use my swearing till all was blue that this was the first application, he wouldn't believe a word of it. He said he had had his suspicions all along, and he called the mater to witness that the first time he saw you in the shop he said you were a rogue. And at last the mater, who'd been stand ing up for you—I never thought she had so much backbone of her ownwas converted, and confessed with tears that you had been here pretty nigh every day and swore you should never set foot here again, and the Old Gentleman dilated on the pretty return you had made for his kindness (sucking his boy's blood, he called it, in an unusual burst of poetry), and he likewise offered some general observations on the comparative keenness of a serpent's tooth and ingratitude. And that's how it stands. There's nothing to be done, I fear, but to let the thing blow over-he'll cool down after a time. Meanwhile, you will have to write to me at the club if you want to meet me. I am awfully sorry, as I enjoyed your visits immensely. Do let me know if I can do anything for you. I'm in a frightful financial mess, but I might give you introductions here or there. I know chaps on papers and that sort of thing. I am sure you have sufficient talent to get along -and you can snap your fingers at creditors, as you haven't got anything they can seize, and can flit any day you like. I wish I was you. With every good wish, Yours always, HERBERT STRang. Matt took this letter more stoically than he would have predicted. He even grinned like a Red Indian at the stake. In truth, he was already so prostrated by illness, hunger, and above all by the heat, that there was nothing left in him to be prostrated. He crawled out soon after the receipt of the letter, and recklessly bought a halfpenny currant loaf, which he washed down with water. CHAPTER VII TOWARDS THE DEEPS THE summer rolled heavily along, bringing strange new experiences to Matt Strang, and strange glimpses of other artworlds than Herbert's. For he did not starve, though Herbert had gone quite out of his life, and he had none with whom to exchange the thoughts of youth. Two pounds ten shillings lent on his dress-suit staved off hunger and his tailor (who got the pounds), till, by the aid of the landlady's son's book, he found out how to tint photographs, and earned sixpences and shillings by coloring cartes-de-visite |