Here Mac paused for an instant, his eyes on the fast-dying embers--as if he were recalling the girl more clearly to his mind. "Had a heart for things outside of her own affairs. Girl a man could tie up to. Human, I tell you--real human!" "Follow it up, Mac?" He had volunteered nothing about her personality, and I dared not ask. "No, let it go. I've been hoping I'd make a hit some time and then maybe I'd--no, don't talk about it any more. Listen! who's that coming upstairs? That's Woods, I know his step. Happy fellow! Hear his whistle--he must have got another order for a full-length; nothing like powder-puff teas for encouraging American art, my boy," and a smile crept over Mac's face, which broadened into a laugh when he added, "I'm beginning to think that a course in cooking is as necessary for a painter as a course in perspective." The expected arrival was by this time beating a rat-a-tat-too on the Chinese screen, his whistle more shrill than ever. "Come in, you pampered child of fashion!" cried Mac, the sound of Woods's joyous step having completely changed the current of his thoughts. "Stop that racket, I tell you. We know you've got another portrait, but don't split our ears over it." A black slouch hat rose slowly above the edge of the screen, then a lock of hair, and then a round fat face in a broad grin. It was Boggs! "Thought you were Woods," cried Mac. "I'm aware of that idiotic mistake on your part, great and masterful painter," burst out Boggs, bowing grandiloquently. "You're not half so good-looking as Woods, you fat woodchuck," shouted back Mac. "I am aware of it, great and masterful painter, but I am infinitely more valuable. I carry priceless things about me. In fact I'm just chuck-full of priceless things. Shake me and I'll exude glad tidings. Marvellous events are happening at the Academy. I have just left there, and I _know_! The main stairway is in the hands of a mob of disappointed millionnaires pressing up toward the South Room. Every art critic in town is clinging to the columns craning his head. Brown is in a collapse, his body stretched out on one of the green sofas. All eyes are fastened--even Brown's glazed peepers--on a small yellow card slipped into the lower left-hand corner of a canvas occupying the centre of the south wall. Before it, down on his knees, pouring out his heart in thankfulness, is the happy purchaser, the tears rolling down his cheeks, his----" "Boggs, what the devil are you talking about!" cried Mac, a sudden light breaking out on his face. "Do you mean----" "I do, most masterful painter--I mean just that! Toot the hewgag! Bang the lyre! The 'East River' is sold!" "Sold!" "SOLD! you duffer!" "Who to?" Mac's voice had an unsteady tremor in it.