"All the same," grunted Mendel, "I am not going to agree to the manifesto. People will read it and laugh at it, and never look at the pictures. You seem to think of everything but them. I wonder you don't set up as a dealer." "You're overworking," said Logan, "that's what you are doing. And directly the exhibition is open I shall pack you off to Brighton." * * * * * Already a week before the opening they began to feel that the eyes of London were upon them. They crept about the streets half-shamefacedly like conspirators, relaxed and wary, waiting for the moment when their triumph should send their shoulders back and their heads up, and they would march together through a London which owed its salvation to them. Not since his portrait had appeared in the Yiddish paper had Mendel been so defiant and so morosely arrogant. He was ill with excitement and could not do a stroke of work. Every minute of the day he spent with Logan and Oliver, to whom Tysoe was often added. He dined with them at the Pot-au-Feu, took them all out to lunch and tea at places like Richmond and Kew, had them to his house, and was squeezed by the approaching success to buy Logan's two largest pictures before the public could have access to them. "They are masterpieces!" he cried, swinging his long hands, "absolute masterpieces! You don't know how much good it does me to be with you two. Absolutely sincere, you are! That's what I like about you. Sincere! One looks for sincerity in vain everywhere else. Sincerity has vanished from the theatre, the novel, music, poetry. I suppose it is democracy--letting the public in behind the scenes, so that they see through all the tricks." "An artist isn't a conjurer!" said Mendel. "That is just what artists have been," cried Logan, "and they can't bluff it out any more." "Exactly!" gurgled Tysoe, who when he was roused from his habitual weak lethargy lost control of his voice, so that it wobbled between a shrill treble and a husky bass. "Exactly! That's what I like about you two. No bluff, no tricks. You do what you want to do and damn the consequences. Ha! ha!" So ill was Mendel just before the exhibition that Logan refused to allow him anywhere near it, and insisted that they should both go to Brighton, leaving Oliver to go to the private view and spy out the land. Oliver protested. She wanted to go to Brighton. "You shall have a new dress and a new hat," said Logan. "You must go to the private view like a real lady. Cluny doesn't know you, and you must go up to him every now and then and ask him in a loud voice what the prices are. You might even pretend to be a little deaf and make him speak clearly and distinctly." The idea tickled Mendel so that he began to laugh, could not stop himself, and was soon almost hysterical. "What's the matter with you?" asked Oliver, shaking him. He gasped:-- "I--I was laughing at the idea of your being a real lady. Ha! ha! ha!"