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‘Yes, there might be money in that,’ cried Jeanne.

‘There is, there is!’ cried Paul. ‘I shall sell it for many francs to a wealthy connoisseur. And then, my angel–‘

‘You are a good little man,’ said the angel, patronizingly. ‘Perhaps. We will see.’

Paul caught her hand and kissed it. She smiled indulgently. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘There might be money. These English pay much money for pictures.’

* * * * *

It is pretty generally admitted that Geoffrey Chaucer, the eminent poet of the fourteenth century, though obsessed with an almost Rooseveltian passion for the new spelling, was there with the goods when it came to profundity of thought. It was Chaucer who wrote the lines:

The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne,
Th’ assay so hard, so sharpe the conquering.

Which means, broadly, that it is difficult to paint a picture, but a great deal more difficult to sell it.

Across the centuries Paul Boielle shook hands with Geoffrey Chaucer. ‘So sharpe the conquering’ put his case in a nutshell.

The full story of his wanderings with the masterpiece would read like an Odyssey and be about as long. It shall be condensed.

There was an artist who dined at intervals at Bredin’s Parisian Cafe, and, as the artistic temperament was too impatient to be suited by Jeanne’s leisurely methods, it had fallen to Paul to wait upon him. It was to this expert that Paul, emboldened by the geniality of the artist’s manner, went for information. How did monsieur sell his pictures? Monsieur said he didn’t, except once in a blue moon. But when he did? Oh, he took the thing to the dealers. Paul thanked him. A friend of him, he explained, had painted a picture and wished to sell it.

‘Poor devil!’ was the artist’s comment.

Next day, it happening to be a Thursday, Paul started on his travels. He started buoyantly, but by evening he was as a punctured balloon. Every dealer had the same remark to make–to wit, no room.

‘Have you yet sold the picture?’ inquired Jeanne, when they met. ‘Not yet,’ said Paul. ‘But they are delicate matters, these negotiations. I use finesse. I proceed with caution.’

He approached the artist again.

‘With the dealers,’ he said, ‘my friend has been a little unfortunate. They say they have no room.’

‘I know,’ said the artist, nodding.

‘Is there, perhaps, another way?’

‘What sort of a picture is it?’ inquired the artist.

Paul became enthusiastic.

‘Ah! monsieur, it is beautiful. It is a woodland scene. A beautiful girl–‘

‘Oh! Then he had better try the magazines. They might use it for a cover.’

Paul thanked him effusively. On the following Thursday he visited divers art editors. The art editors seemed to be in the same unhappy condition as the dealers. ‘Overstocked!’ was their cry.

‘The picture?’ said Jeanne, on the Friday morning. ‘Is it sold?’

‘Not yet,’ said Paul, ‘but–‘

‘Always but!’

‘My angel!’

‘Bah!’ said Jeanne, with a toss of her large but shapely head.

By the end of the month Paul was fighting in the last ditch, wandering disconsolately among those who dwell in outer darkness and have grimy thumbs. Seven of these in all he visited on that black Thursday, and each of the seven rubbed the surface of the painting with a grimy thumb, snorted, and dismissed him. Sick and beaten, Paul took the masterpiece back to his skylight room.

All that night he lay awake, thinking. It was a weary bundle of nerves that came to the Parisian Cafe next morning. He was late in arriving, which was good in that it delayed the inevitable question as to the fate of the picture, but bad in every other respect. M. Bredin, squatting behind the cash-desk, grunted fiercely at him; and, worse, Jeanne, who, owing to his absence, had had to be busier than suited her disposition, was distant and haughty. A murky gloom settled upon Paul.