“Well, you know all the editors of the illustrated weeklies and magazines.”
“For my sins I do—alas!”
“Then, to come right to the point as between man and man, I want to buy a first-class critic, and the editor of a first-class illustrated periodical.”
“You mean you want to buy a going magazine?”
“I don’t mean anything of the kind. I mean just what I say.”
“Then I don’t quite understand you. Explain.”
“What I want is this: I want a first-class art-critic to write an article in a first-class periodical saying Barnard Hope is the greatest artist the world has ever seen.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“No, that’s not all. I want the article superbly illustrated—in colour if possible—with, reproductions of my chief paintings.”
“Ah! I wouldn’t do that, Barney, if I were you. The pictures would be rather a give-away of the great critic’s eulogy.”