It must be an American millionaire, and he's evidently
got a very big price for it; he's just beaming and chuckling with
satisfaction."
"We must ask him who has bought it," said Mrs. Nougat-Jones.
"Hush! no, don't. Let's buy some of his sketches, quick, before we are
supposed to know that he's famous; otherwise he'll be doubling the
prices. I am so glad he's had a success at last. I always believed in
him, you know."
For the sum of ten shillings each Miss Strubble acquired the drawings of
the camel dying in Upper Berkeley Street and of the giraffes quenching
their thirst in Trafalgar Square; at the same price Mrs. Nougat-Jones
secured the study of roosting sand-grouse. A more ambitious picture,
"Wolves and wapiti fighting on the steps of the Athenaeum Club," found a
purchaser at fifteen shillings.
"And now what are your plans?" asked a young man who contributed
occasional paragraphs to an artistic weekly.
"I go back to Stolpmunde as soon as the ship sails," said the artist,
"and I do not return. Never."
"But your work? Your career as painter?"
"Ah, there is nossing in it. One starves. Till to-day I have sold not
one of my sketches. To-night you have bought a few, because I am going
away from you, but at other times, not one."
"But has not some American--?"
"Ah, the rich American," chuckled the artist. "God be thanked. He dash
his car right into our herd of schwines as they were being driven out to
the fields.
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