Susan felt crushed, but a leaven of her mother in her constrained her to reply: "I hope that commode is worth nine hundred pounds." "It’s worth a damn sight more than that, Susie!" Tomlin came to see it next day. He examined it carefully, with his sharp nose cocked at a critical angle. Finally, he said hesitatingly: "Are you quite sure, Joe, that Angelica Kauffman painted them panels?" "Just as sure, old man, as if I’d seen her at it." Nevertheless, Tomlin’s question rankled. *II* With many apologies, we present the reader to Messrs. Lark and Bundy, of Oxford Street. Gustavus Lark is probably the best known of the London art dealers. He is now an old man, and his sons and Bundy’s sons manage an immense business. Ten years ago he had not retired. Criticism of him or his methods are irrelevant to this chronicle, but a side-light is thrown upon them when we consider how he treated Joe Quinney, a young man against whom he had no grudge whatever. Gustavus Lark heard, of course, that a Melchester dealer, newly settled in Soho Square, had bought a commode said to be painted by Angelica Kauffman for nine hundred pounds. Immediately he sent for his eldest son, a true chip of the old block. "Why did we not hear of this?" The son answered curtly: "Because we can’t hear of everything. There wasn’t one big London dealer at the sale; and the only thing worth having was this commode." "Is it the goods?" "I believe so." "Do you know?" "Well, yes—I know." "I must send for Pressland." Pressland deserves some little attention. England honours him as a connoisseur of Old Masters. Upon pictures his word is often the first and the last. We know that he "boomed" certain painters, long dead. To quote Quinney, he "created" values. And he worked hand in hand with just such men as Gustavus Lark. In appearance he might have been a successful dentist. He wore a frock-coat and small side-whiskers. He said "Please" in an ingratiating tone. His hands were scrupulously clean, as if he had washed them often after dirty jobs. Out of a pale, sallow face shone two small grey eyes, set too close together. He contradicted other experts with an inimitable effrontery. "What is this?" he would say, laying a lean forefinger upon a doubtful signature. "A Velasquez? I think not. Why? Because, my dear sir, I know!" Admittedly, he did know about Velasquez; and this knowledge was, so to speak, on tap, at the service of anybody willing to pay a reasonable fee. But his knowledge of furniture and porcelain was placed with reserve at the disposition of dealers. He told many persons that he made mistakes, and the public never guessed that such mistakes were paid for munificently.