Carve. I'll say this—you know a picture when you see it.
Ebag. (Proudly.) I am an expert, nothing else.
Carve. All right! Well, I'll only ask you to persevere in your discretion. As you say, it isn't your affair. Thank goodness, I didn't put a date on any of these things. I won't sell any more. I'd take an oath never to paint again, only I know I should go and break it next week. I shall rely on this famous discretion of yours to say nothing—nothing whatever.
Ebag. I'm afraid it's too late.
Carve. How too late?
Ebag. I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to state publicly that you are Ilam Carve, and that there must have been—er—some misapprehension, somewhere, over that funeral.
Carve. (Aghast.) Publicly? Why?
Ebag. It's like this, I've been selling those pictures to Texel in New York. You remember, he's always been one of your principal collectors. He's getting old, and he's half-blind, but he still buys. Now, I rely on my judgment, and I guaranteed those pictures to
[109]be genuine Carves. Well, somebody over there must have had suspicions.
Carve. What does that matter? There isn't a date on any of them.