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But when, on the next meeting night, I paid in one hundred dollars to the treasury, a sum more than sufficient to make our room comfortable, they were quite satisfied. The only thing that troubled them was to know what to do with the pictures they had drawn. Not one of them was willing to keep his preposterous landscape in his house. It was Mrs. Buckby, our president’s wife, who suggested a way out of the difficulty.

“Of course,” she said to her husband, “it would have been much better if each one of you had given the two dollars without any raffle, and then you would have had all your money. But one can’t expect men to do a thing like that.”

“Not after we had all paid in our regular dues, and had been subscribing and subscribing for this, that, and the other thing for nearly a year,” said I, who was present at the time. “Some extra inducement was necessary.”

“But, as you have all those horrid landscapes,” she continued, “why don’t you take them and put them up along the top of your walls, next the ceiling, where those openings are which used to ventilate the room when it was used for storage? That would save all the money that you would have to pay to carpenters and painters to have those places made tight and decent-looking; and it would give your room a gorgeous appearance.”

This idea was hailed with delight. Every man brought his picture to the hall, and we nailed the whole hundred in a row along the top of the four walls, turning one with the darker half up, and the next the other way, so as to present alternate views of morning and evening along the whole distance. The arrangement answered admirably. The draughts of air from outside were perfectly excluded: and as our walls were very lofty, the general effect was good.

“Art of that kind cannot be too high,” said Mr. Horter.

A week or two after this, when I arrived at home one afternoon, my wife told me that there was a present for me in the dining-room. As such things were not common, I hurried in to see what it was. I found a very large flat package, tied up in brown paper, and on it a card with my name and a long inscription. The latter was to the effect that my associates of the Hook and Ladder Company, desirous of testifying their gratitude to the originator and promoter of the raffle scheme, took pleasure in presenting him with the accompanying work of art, which, when hung upon the walls of his house, would be a perpetual reminder to him of the great and good work he had done for the Association.

I cannot deny that this pleased me much.

“Well!” I exclaimed to my wife, “it is very seldom that a man gets any thanks for his gratuitous efforts in behalf of his fellow-beings; and although I must say that my services in raising money for the Association deserved recognition, I did not expect that the members would do themselves the justice to make me a present.”

Unwrapping the package, I discovered, to my intense disgust, a copy of the Reversible Landscape! My first thought was that some of the members, for a joke, had taken down one of the paintings from our meeting-room and had sent it to me; but, on carefully examining the canvas and frame, I was quite certain that this picture had never been nailed to a wall. It was evidently a new and fresh copy of the painting of which I had been assured no more would be produced. I must admit that I had felt a certain pride in decorating our hall with the style of picture that could not be seen elsewhere; and, moreover, I greatly dislike to be overreached in business matters, and my wrath against the manufacturer of high art entirely overpowered and dissipated any little resentment I might have felt against my waggish fellow-members who had sent me the painting.

Early the next morning I went direct to the art-factory, and was just about entering when my attention was attracted by a prominent picture in the window. I stepped back to look at it. It was our reversible landscape, mounted upon an easel, and labelled “A Morning Scene.” While I examined it to assure myself that it was really the landscape with which I was so familiar, it was turned upside down by some concealed machinery, and appeared labelled, “An Evening Scene.” At the foot of the easel I now noticed a placard inscribed: “The Reversible Landscape: A New Idea in Art.”

I stood for a moment astounded. The rascally picture-monger had not only made another of these pictures, but he was prepared to furnish them in any number. Rushing into the gallery, I demanded to see the proprietor.

“Look here!” said I, “what docs this mean? You told me that there were to be no more of those pictures painted; that I was to possess a unique lot.”

“That’s not the same picture, sir,” he exclaimed. “I am surprised that you should think so. Step outside with me, sir, and I’ll prove it to you. There, sir!” said he, as we stood before the painting, which was now Morning side up, “you see that star? In the pictures we sold you the morning star was Venus; in this one it is Jupiter. This is not the same picture. Do you imagine that we would deceive a customer? That, sir, is a thing we never do!”