However, he fished up a name once more, and clutched at it. 'Savonarola, too,' he adventured. 'I adore Savonarola. His pickchahs are beautiful.' 'And so rare!' Elsie murmured. 'Then there is Fra Diavolo?' I suggested, going one better. 'How do you like Fra Diavolo?' He seemed to have heard the name before, but still he hesitated. 'Ah--what did he paint?' he asked, with growing caution. I stuffed him valiantly. 'Those charming angels, you know,' I answered. 'With the roses and the glories!' 'Oh, yaas; I recollect. All askew, aren't they; like this! I remembah them very well. But----' a doubt flitted across his brain, 'wasn't his name Fra Angelico?' 'His brother,' I replied, casting truth to the winds. 'They worked together, you must have heard. One did the saints; the other did the opposite. Division of labour, don't you see; Fra Angelico, Fra Diavolo.' [Illustration: WASN'T FRA DIAVOLO ALSO A COMPOSAH?] He fingered his cigarette with a dubious hand, and wriggled his eye-glass tighter. 'Yaas, beautiful; beautiful! But----' growing suspicious apace, 'wasn't Fra Diavolo also a composah?' 'Of course,' I assented. 'In his off time, he composed. Those early Italians--so versatile, you see; so versatile!' He had his doubts, but he suppressed them. 'And Torricelli,' I went on, with a side glance at Elsie, who was choking by this time. 'And Chianti, and Frittura, and Cinquevalli, and Giulio Romano.' His distrust increased. 'Now you're trying to make me commit myself,' he drawled out. 'I remembah Torricelli--he's the fellah who used to paint all his women crooked. But Chianti's a wine; I've often drunk it; and Romano's--well, every fellah knows Romano's is a restaurant near the Gaiety Theatre.' 'Besides,' I continued, in a drawl like his own, 'there are Risotto, and Gnocchi, and Vermicelli, and Anchovy--all famous paintahs, and all of whom I don't doubt you admiah.' Elsie exploded at last. But he took no offence. He smiled inanely, as if he rather enjoyed it. 'Look heah, you know,' he said, with his crafty smile; 'that's one too much. I'm not taking any. You think yourselves very clevah for kidding me with paintahs who are really macaroni and cheese and claret; yet if I were to tell you the Lejah was run at Ascot, or the Cesarewitch at Doncastah, why, you'd be no wisah. When it comes to art, I don't have a look in; but I could tell you a thing or two about starting prices.' And I was forced to admit that there he had reason. Still, I think he realised that he had better avoid the subject of art in future, as we avoided the noble quadruped. He saw his limitations.