A REJECTED TITIAN
"John," my wife remarked in horrified tones, "he's coming to Rome!"
"Who is coming to Rome—the Emperor?"
"Uncle Ezra—see," she handed me the telegram. "Shall arrive in Rome
Wednesday morning; have Watkins at the Grand Hotel."
I handed the despatch to Watkins.
"Poor uncle!" my wife remarked.
"He will get it in the neck," I added, profanely.
"They ought to put nice old gentlemen like your uncle in bond when they reach Italy," Watkins mused, as if bored in advance. "The antichitàs get after them, like—like confidence-men in an American city, and the same old story is the result; they find, in some mysterious fashion, a wonderful Titian, a forgotten Giorgione, cheap at cinque mille lire. Then it's all up with them. His pictures are probably decalcomanias, you know, just colored prints pasted over board. Why, we know every picture in Venice; it's simply impossible—"
Watkins was a connoisseur; he had bought his knowledge in the dearest school of experience.
"What are you going to do, Mr. Watkins?" my wife put in. "Tell him the truth?"