'H'm?' he said, lifting his eyebrows. Then suddenly, 'What do you get on 'em?'
'Twelve and sixpence each.'
'How many has he got?'
'Nine,' I answered.
'Got the tickets?' he said, examining the picture on the easel.
I produced them from a drawer.
'Five pounds fourteen,' he said to himself. 'A pound 'll pay the interest. Call it six ten, roughly. Got anybody you can send out for 'em?'
I rang the bell, and by-and-by my landlady appeared.
'Look here,' said the stranger, taking out a purse. 'Take this six pounds ten and that lot of pawn tickets, and send somebody to the pawnbroker's to bring the pictures out.'
My landlady took the money and went downstairs. In ten minutes she came back again with a boy behind her, carrying all my canvas children home again. During this time the stranger said nothing. Now he took the change in silver and copper from my landlady, said 'Eight,' and nothing more, and then set the pictures one by one on the easel and looked at them all in turn. When he had satisfied himself, he turned on me again.