"Oh, you needn't worry about the Madame; she won't suffer for clothes as long as she's got that pair of eyes in her head. You just ought to have seen her handle old Fish. It was beautiful. But, see here now, you don't want to make old Peter a present of this portrait of his daughter. He's good for a thousand, I tell you. She got a cracking price for that one," and he pointed to the picture. Again Oliver laughed. "A cracking price? She must have needed the money bad." The more he thought of it the funnier it seemed. Snedecor looked surprised. He was thinking of Fish's order and the amount of his commission. Most of Oliver's remarks were unintelligible to him--especially his reference to the stockings. "What shall I say to him?" Snedecor asked at last. "Oh, nothing in particular. Just send him to my studio. I'll be in all to-morrow morning." "Well, but don't you think you'd better go and see him yourself now? He's too big a bug to run after people. That kind of thing don't come every day, you know; you might lose it. Why, he lives right near you in that swell house across the Square." "Oh, I know him very well," said Oliver, nodding his head. "No, let him come to-morrow to me; it won't hurt him to walk up three flights of stairs. I'm busy to-day. Now I think of it, there's one thing, though, you CAN tell him, and please be particular about it--there will be no advance over my regular price. I don't care to compete with her ladyship." Without waiting to hear the dealer's protest he stepped outside the shop and joined the crowd about the window, elbowing each other for a better view of the portrait. No one recognized him. He was too obscure for that. They might after this, he thought with an exultant throb, and a flush of pride crossed his face. As he walked down Broadway a sense of the humor of the whole situation came over him. Here for years he had been working day and night; running the gauntlet of successive juries and hanging committees, with his best things rejected or skied until his Tam-o'-Shanter girl made a hit; worrying, hoping against hope, racking his brain as to how and when and where he would find the path which would lead him to commercial success--a difficult task for one too proud to beg for favors and too independent to seek another's aid--and here, out of the clear sky, had come this audacious Bohemienne, the pet of foyer and studio--a woman who presented the greatest number of contrasts to the things he held most dear in womankind--and with a single stroke had cleared the way to success for him. And this, too, not from any love of him, nor his work, nor his future, but simply to settle a board-bill or pay for a bonnet. Again Oliver laughed, this time so loudly that the man in front turned and looked at him.