"Perhaps," suggested Mrs. Nougat-Jones, "if you were to offer them for a little less, some of us would be glad to buy a few. Ten shillings is always a consideration, you know, to people who are not over well off.
Perhaps if you were to ask six or seven shillings-"
Once a peasant, always a peasant. The mere suggestion of a bargain to be struck brought a twinkle of awakened alertness into the artist"s eyes, and hardened the lines of his mouth.
"Nine schilling nine pence each," he snapped, and seemed disappointed that Mrs. Nougat-Jones did not pursue the subject further. He had evidently expected her to offer seven and fourpence.
The weeks sped by, and Knopfschrank came more rarely to the restaurant in Owl Street, while his meals on those occasions became more and more meagre. And then came a triumphal day, when he appeared early in the evening in a high state of elation, and ordered an elaborate meal that scarcely stopped short of being a banquet. The ordinary resources of the kitchen were supplemented by an imported dish of smoked goosebreast, a Pomeranian delicacy that was luckily procurable at a firm of _delikatessen_ merchants in Coventry Street, while a long-necked bottle of Rhine wine gave a finishing touch of festivity and good cheer to the crowded table.
"He has evidently sold his masterpiece," whispered Sylvia Strubble to Mrs. Nougat-Jones, who had come in late.
"Who has bought it?" she whispered back.
"Don"t know; he hasn"t said anything yet, but it must be some American.
Do you see, he has got a little American flag on the dessert dish, and he has put pennies in the music box three times, once to play the "Star-spangled Banner," then a Sousa march, and then the "Star-spangled Banner" again. It must be an American millionaire, and he"s evidently got a very big price for it; he"s just beaming and chuckling with satisfaction."
"We must ask him who has bought it," said Mrs. Nougat-Jones.
"Hush! no, don"t. Let"s buy some of his sketches, quick, before we are supposed to know that he"s famous; otherwise he"ll be doubling the prices. I am so glad he"s had a success at last. I always believed in him, you know."
For the sum of ten shillings each Miss Strubble acquired the drawings of the camel dying in Upper Berkeley Street and of the giraffes quenching their thirst in Trafalgar Square; at the same price Mrs. Nougat-Jones secured the study of roosting sand-grouse. A more ambitious picture, "Wolves and wapiti fighting on the steps of the Athenaeum Club," found a purchaser at fifteen shillings.
"And now what are your plans?" asked a young man who contributed occasional paragraphs to an artistic weekly.
"I go back to Stolpmunde as soon as the ship sails," said the artist, "and I do not return. Never."
"But your work? Your career as painter?"
"Ah, there is nossing in it. One starves. Till to-day I have sold not one of my sketches. To-night you have bought a few, because I am going away from you, but at other times, not one."
"But has not some American-?"
"Ah, the rich American," chuckled the artist. "G.o.d be thanked. He dash his car right into our herd of schwines as they were being driven out to the fields. Many of our best schwines he killed, but he paid all damages. He paid perhaps more than they were worth, many times more than they would have fetched in the market after a month of fattening, but he was in a hurry to get on to Dantzig. When one is in a hurry one must pay what one is asked. G.o.d be thanked for rich Americans, who are always in a hurry to get somewhere else. My father and mother, they have now so plenty of money; they send me some to pay my debts and come home. I start on Monday for Stolpmunde and I do not come back. Never."
"But your picture, the hyaenas?"
"No good. It is too big to carry to Stolpmunde. I burn it."
In time he will be forgotten, but at present Knopfschrank is almost as sore a subject as Sledonti with some of the frequenters of the Nuremberg Restaurant, Owl Street, Soho.