"He isn't so cut and dried as other people, if that's what you mean," Jack replied, with warmth. "If there's a kind thing to be done, or a helping hand to be held out, he's the man to do it. I wish there were a few more as eccentric as he." Jack felt as if he had made rather a good point here. The worst of it was, as he rapidly reflected, that it all had to be run out so quickly. With a lot of people walking about, they were liable at any moment to be interrupted; even now he looked with disgust at a young lady in a creamy white dress, who smiled at Miss Aitcheson as she passed. He was more disgusted when Bell stopped her. "We are talking about art and artists," she said, slipping her arm into the other girl's. "And we don't want you," Jack said to himself, unmollified by the answering smile. "However, here goes! So long as Miss Aitcheson hears and repeats in the right quarter, it doesn't matter who listens." Aloud, he said, "People who only know Everitt as an artist can't judge of his kindness of heart. You see, in our line there are a lot of poor wretches who find it awfully hard to pick up a living. Some are never good for anything, but there are a few who just want to be set on their legs, and then they stick there. I'm not sure I wasn't one of them myself," added Jack, with an ingenuous laugh. "Did Mr Everitt set you on your legs?" inquired Bell, innocently. "Yes, he did, and I'm not ashamed to own it," said the young fellow, manfully. "If I do anything it will be thanks to him." He was so much taken up with his cause that he did not notice that when Everitt's name was first mentioned the girl who was standing close to Miss Aitcheson made a movement to leave them, and was held fast by Bell. Finding herself a prisoner, she did not again attempt to escape, but stood silently by, her face almost concealed by the drooping lace of her parasol. "There was a man," Jack went on, warming yet more to his subject, "who got a picture hung at one of last year's exhibitions--it wasn't at all a bad picture--and sold it. It was his first bit of luck, and almost sent him off his head; he married, for one thing, on the strength of it. Well, it wasn't sold, after all." "Not sold?" repeated Bell, in wonder. "The purchaser never turned up. That sort of thing does happen now and then, but it came awfully rough on this poor fellow. You see, it had kept off other buyers, and then, I expect, he had traded a bit on the money; and the end of it was, he worked himself into a sort of brain fever, and was about as bad as could be, and the poor little wife was at her wits' end, without friends or money or anything. Anybody would have helped them who'd known, but nobody took the trouble to find out except Everitt. He got a doctor and a nurse, and I know he went there every day, and he bought the picture--though, of course, that isn't much good to _him_."