A thin, shabby little man, with stooping shoulders, hooked nose and velvet tread, stood before the card rack in the lower corridor of the old studio building on Tenth Street. He was scanning the names, beginning at the top floor and going down to the basement. Suddenly his eyes glistened:
“Second floor,” he whispered to himself. “Yes, of course; I knew it all the time—second floor,” and “second floor” he kept repeating as he helped his small body up the steps by means of the hand-rail.
The little man earned his living by obtaining orders for portraits which he turned over to the several painters, fitting the price to their reputations, and by hunting up undoubted old masters, rare porcelains, curios and miniatures for collectors. He was reasonably honest, and his patrons followed his advice whenever it was backed by somebody they knew. He was also cunning—softly, persuasively cunning—with all the patience and philosophy of his race.
On this morning the little man had a Gilbert Stuart for sale, and what was more to the point he had a customer for the masterpiece: Morlon, the collector, of unlimited means and limited wall space, would buy it provided Adam Gregg, the distinguished portrait painter, Member of the International Jury, Commander of the Legion of Honor, Hors Concours in Paris and Munich, etc., etc., would pronounce it genuine.
The distinguished painter never hesitated to give his services in settling such matters. He delighted in doing it. Just as he always delighted in criticising the work of any young student who came to him for counsel—a habit he had learned in his life abroad—and always with a hand on the boy’s shoulder and a twinkle in his brown eyes that robbed his words of any sting.
When dealers sought his help he was not so gracious. He disliked dealers—another of his foreign prejudices. Tender-hearted as he was he generally exploded with dynamic force—and he could explode when anything stirred him—whenever a dealer attempted to make him a party to anything that looked like fraud. He had once cut an assumed Corot into ribbons with his pocket-knife—and this since he had been home in New York, fifteen years now—and had then handed the strips back to the dealer with the remark:
“Down in the Treasury they brand counterfeits with a die; I do it with a knife. Send me the bill.”
The little man, with the cunning of his race, knew this peculiarity, and he also knew that ten chances to one the great painter would receive him with a frigid look, and perhaps bow him out of the door. So he had studied out and arranged a little game. Only the day before he had obtained an order for a portrait to be painted by the best man-painter of his time. The picture was to be full length and to hang in the directors’ room of a great corporation. This order he had in his pocket in writing, signed by the secretary of the board. Confirmations were sometimes valuable.
As the little man’s body neared the great painter’s door a certain pleasurable sensation trickled through him. To catch a painter on a hook baited with an order, and then catch a great collector like Morlon on another hook baited with a painter, was admirable fishing.
With these thoughts in his mind he rapped timidly on Adam Gregg’s door, and was answered by a strong, cheery voice calling: