When she could stop giggling she said—
"He makes mistakes of course, but he has been wonderfully successful. His knowledge of human nature is immense, and his foresight amounts to genius. These attributes account for his having so few failures."
Not perceiving what human nature and foresight had to do with buying pictures, I endeavoured to bring back the conversation to a lower and more comprehensible level.
"Does he make it the business of his life to pick up these splendid specimens?" I asked.
"I believe so; but speak lower in case the colonel opposite hears you; he might object, and he is a regular fire-eater. Coffee and pistols, you know."
"I would not hurt his feelings for the world. Is he interested in the speculation?"
"He is after the Queen of Sheba; the one with the bird of Paradise feather."
"After the Queen of Sheba, is he? Then there is a sale occasionally?"
"There is, but we call it by a different name, though it comes to much the same thing in the end."