GALLERY PLAY.
It wasn't till Panmore noticed its absence on his return from France that I remembered the little oil painting which I had left at the Ferndale Gallery on sale or return, during the early days of the War, when my financial outlook was bad.
Panmore said he had always wanted to buy it, but hadn't liked to ask me if I would part with it. I assured him that excess even of delicacy was a mistake and that I would try to get the picture back.
So I wrote to the Gallery thus:—
DEAR SIRS (it seemed absurd to write "Dear Gallery"),—In 1914 or 1915 I brought you a small oil painting, which you agreed to sell or return to me. As I haven't heard from you since, I conclude that there has been nothing doing in such pictures and I should like to have it back. The picture is quite a small one, about the size of an ordinary book, and so far as I recollect it portrays a man looking at a horse, to see if its withers stand where they did; or perhaps wondering whether he would sell it and buy a scooter. As a matter of fact I never took particular notice of the picture, not caring for it, but a friend of mine who knows it well appears interested in it and wants to buy it. So please let me have it back as soon as possible.
Yours faithfully,
THEOPHILUS B. PIPER-CARY.
P.S.—By the way, there's a cow, I remember, in the background; a red one. Not a red background; a red cow.
This was the answer I received:—
DEAR SIR,—In reply to yours of the 13th inst., we remember your visit, but cannot trace having such a picture as you describe in our possession at present. We believe you dealt with our Mr. James Langford, who joined up in May, 1915, and is not yet demobilised. He is in Egypt at the moment, we understand, and we are afraid it would take some time to get into communication with him.
We shall be glad if under the circumstances you will allow the matter to rest until his return.
In any case we are afraid we cannot hold ourselves responsible for the picture, unless you can produce a receipt from us proving that it reached us.
We are, Yours obediently,
pp. THE FERNDALE GALLERY.
J.S.
The last paragraph in their letter gave me the impression that they knew they had the picture but had mislaid it. Meanwhile Panmore seemed so hot on it and I was so badly hit by the War that I thought I would have another shot at recovering it. So I addressed the Gallery as follows:—
DEAR SIRS,—Thanks for your letter, and in reply I should be obliged if you could get another search party out. I have found a receipt for the picture, signed with a name that might, if straightened out, be James Langford.
My friend is getting quite excited about it, and he is the sort of person one wants to humour. He is a Lieut.-Colonel, an O.B.E., and, what is more important still, one of the feoffees of Buckley's Hospital (a fifteenth-century foundation here), and whatever a feoffee may be he is not the kind of man to toy with in a small town like this.
I forgot to mention that there is an inn on the left of the picture, and a girl coming out of it carrying, perhaps, a bran-mash for the horse or some Government dope for the man, and there are some hens, all fully regardant and expectant, at her feet.
Hoping to hear in the course of a post or two that you have found the painting,
I am, Yours anxiously,
THEOPHILUS B. PIPER-CARY.
P.S.—Don't forget there's a cow in the background; a red cow.
Three days later I received a picture (not mine) from the Gallery with this letter:—
DEAR SIR,—After a most exhaustive search we have found and send herewith what we believe to be your picture, though it does not quite answer to your description. It is, however, the only one of which we do not appear to have any record.
Our Mr. Langford seems likely to be abroad for some months, so unless you will accept this picture in settlement of the matter we do not see any present way out of the difficulty.
Confident that, if it is not yours, it is at least just as good, we trust that you will agree to cry quits.
We are, Yours obediently,
pp. THE FERNDALE GALLERY.
J.S.
Why they should feel sure it was just as good, unless they remembered my picture, wasn't very clear, but evidently the receipt had put the wind up them, and I wrote and accepted the substitute at once, because Panmore liked it better even than the original picture. He said it was an Alken and gave me far more than I would have thought of asking for it, or for the original one.
About a week after selling it I received this wire from the Gallery:—
Please return painting sent in error. Very valuable Alken. Have customer.
FERNDALE.
"Diamond cut diamond," I said to myself. And I replied thus:—
DEAR SIRS,—I received your wire, but regret that I cannot comply with your request. Firstly, because I have already accepted the picture which you regarded as mine or its equivalent, in place of the one that was mine and is now yours; and, secondly, because my friend the feoffee has already bought it, the one that was yours and is now mine, or rather his (you know what I mean, don't you?), and I haven't the heart to ask him to return it.
Perhaps yours (the one that is now yours and was mine before), being the equivalent of the one that was yours and is now mine (or rather the feoffee's), would suit your client. I can only suggest your having another look for it; the matter so far as I am concerned is at an end. Yours faithfully,
THEOPHILUS B. PIPER-CARY.
P.S.—You'll know it when you find it. There's a red cow in the background.
"Sentence of Mike Ancon, found guilty of housekeeping, was postponed yesterday afternoon."—Manitoba Free Press.
This species of crime is almost extinct in England.
