Suddenly he ceased working. There was a step on the stairs, a knock at the door. Could it be?——
CHAPTER II A LOST TYPE
"My young friend Leavesley," cried the apparition that had suddenly framed itself in the doorway; "busy as usual—and how is Art?"
"I don't know. Come in and shut the door; take a seat, take a cigarette—bother this drapery—well, what have you been doing with yourself?"
Mr Verneede took neither a seat nor a cigarette. He took his place behind the painter, and gazed at the work in progress with a critical air.
He was a fantastic-looking old gentleman, dressed in a tightly-buttoned frock coat. A figure suggestive of Count d'Orsay gone to the dogs. Mildewed, washed, and mangled by Fate, and very much faded in the process.
He said nothing for a moment, and then he said, after a long and critical survey of the little genre picture on which our artist was engaged:
"Your work improves, decidedly your work improves, Leavesley—improves, very much so, very much so, very much so."
The artist said nothing, and the irresponsible critic, placing his hat on the floor and tightly clasping the umbrella he carried under his left arm, made a funnel of his hands and gazed through it at the picture.