“Really? I should like to see the picture.” “Thank you, sir. It’s in the kitchen. Shall I fetch it? Lizzie says it’s a very speakin’ likeness, sir, excepting that I was sort o’ took by surprise, so to say, and had no time to spruce up.” “Yes, bring it in by all means.” The gardener hurried away and Ethan turned again to the picture. When Billings returned Ethan said carelessly: “By the way, if your wife asks about this you can tell her I have――er――taken charge of it. Ah, this is the picture, eh? Why, I’d call that excellent, Billings, excellent! Truly, a very speaking likeness. You say Miss Devereux took this?” [Illustration] “Yes, sir, the same day they was taking the others, sir. I had lopped off the branches and was standin’ by watching, sir, and after she had taken that one there, sir, she said to me: ‘Billings, would you mind if I took’――――” “Not after she’d taken this, Billings,” interrupted Ethan, in the interests of accuracy. “She didn’t take this one, of course.” “I beg pardon, Mr. Ethan?” “Never mind. I only said you didn’t mean that it was after she had taken this one; it was another one you meant.” “Oh, no, sir, it was that very one, sir. I had just lopped off the branches――――” “You don’t mean that she took her own picture, surely?” asked Ethan with a smile. “No, sir.” “Exactly.” “It was that one you have there, sir, she took.” “This one? Now, look here, Billings, let’s get this straightened out while we’re at it. Do you mean that Miss Devereux――mind, I’m talking of _Miss Devereux_――do you mean that Miss Devereux took this photograph I have in my hands?” “Yes, sir, that’s the one. I had just lopped――――” “Never mind the lopping,” interrupted Ethan with smiling impatience. “But tell me how she did it.” “Why, sir, she stood her camery up a little ways off, sir; it had three little legs onto it, sir; and she pressed a little rubber ball, and the camery went ‘click,’ sir, like that, sir,――‘click!’ and――――” “Yes, yes, but――now look here, how far off was the camera from――from this place, where you had lopped the branches?” “About twenty feet, sir, maybe.” “Well, will you kindly, tell me how Miss Devereux managed to squeeze the little rubber ball and get into the picture at the same time?” “Sir?” “What I mean is,” answered Ethan patiently, “how could she have been here――” tapping the photograph he held――“and at the camera the same instant?” That was evidently a poser. Billings scratched the back of his head dubiously. Finally, “But she wasn’t there, sir!” he explained. “Wasn’t where? At the camera?” “Yes, sir; I mean no, sir. She wasn’t there!” He pointed at the picture. “Wasn’t here!” exclaimed Ethan. “Then how――hang it, man, but here’s her picture!” “Beg pardon, Mr. Ethan?” Billings looked both pained and puzzled, and shot a quick look of inquiry at the dinner table. “I say here’s her picture, you idiot!” repeated Ethan. “Whose picture, sir?” “Why, Miss Devereux’s!” “No, sir.”