"Now I dissolve this much of it in hot water--then I glue over the face of the picture three layers of tissue-paper, one on top of the other--so! "Now here is a new chassis or stretcher over which I have stretched a new linen canvas. Yesterday I sponged it as a tailor sponges cloth; and now it's dry and tight. "Now I'm going to reline this battered old Italian canvas. It's already been relined--perhaps a hundred years ago. So first I take off the old relining canvas--with hot water--this way--cleaning off all the old paste or glue from it with alcohol.... "Now here's a pot of paste in which there is also glue and whitening; and I spread it over the back of this old painting, and then, very gingerly, glue it over the new linen canvas on the stretcher. "Now I smooth it with this polished wooden block, and then--just watch me do laundry work!" He picked up a flat-iron which was moderately warm, reversed the relined picture on a marble slab, and began to iron it out with the skill and precaution of an expert laundress doing frills. Ledwith looked on with a sort of tremulously fixed interest. "In three days," said Quarren, laying the plastered picture away, "I'll soak off that tissue paper with warm water. I have to keep it on, you see, so that no flakes of paint shall escape from the painting and no air get in to blister the surface." He picked up another picture and displayed it: "Here's a picture that I believe to be a study by Greuze. You see I have already relined it and it's fixed on its new canvas and stretcher and is thoroughly dry and ready for cleaning. And this is how I begin." He took a fine sponge, soaked it in a weak solution of alcohol, and very gingerly washed the blackened and dirty canvas. Then he dried it. Then he gave it a coat of varnish. "Looks foolish to varnish over a filthy and discoloured picture like this, doesn't it, Ledwith? But I'll tell you why. When that varnish dries hard I shall place my hand on the face of that canvas and begin very cautiously but steadily to rub the varnished surface with my fingers and thumb. And do you know what will happen? The new varnish has partly united with the old yellow and opaque coating of varnish and dust, and it all will turn to a fine gray powder under the friction and will come away leaving the old paint underneath almost as fresh--very often quite as fresh and delicate as when the picture was first painted. "Sometimes I have to use three or more coats of new varnish before I can remove the old without endangering the delicate glaze underneath. But sooner or later I get it clean.