“Ah, it cost money! There is the ship passage to Stolpmünde, and there is money that I owe at my lodgings. Even here I owe a few schillings. If I could sell some of my sketches—”
“Perhaps,” suggested Mrs. Nougat-Jones, “if you were to offer them for a little less, some of us would be glad to buy a few. Ten shillings is always a consideration, you know, to people who are not over well off. Perhaps if you were to ask six or seven shillings—”
Once a peasant, always a peasant. The mere suggestion of a bargain to be struck brought a twinkle of awakened alertness into the artist’s eyes, and hardened the lines of his mouth.
“Nine schilling nine pence each,” he snapped, and seemed disappointed that Mrs. Nougat-Jones did not pursue the subject further. He had evidently expected her to offer seven and fourpence.
The weeks sped by, and Knopfschrank came more rarely to the restaurant in Owl Street, while his meals on those occasions became more and more meagre. And then came a triumphal day, when he appeared early in the evening in a high state of elation, and ordered an elaborate meal that scarcely stopped short of being a banquet. The ordinary resources of the kitchen were supplemented by an imported dish of smoked goosebreast, a Pomeranian delicacy that was luckily procurable at a firm of delikatessen merchants in Coventry Street, while a long-necked bottle of Rhine wine gave a finishing touch of festivity and good cheer to the crowded table.
“He has evidently sold his masterpiece,” whispered Sylvia Strubble to Mrs. Nougat-Jones, who had come in late.
“Who has bought it?” she whispered back.
“Don’t know; he hasn’t said anything yet, but it must be some American. Do you see, he has got a little American flag on the dessert dish, and he has put pennies in the music box three times, once to play the ‘Star-spangled Banner,’ then a Sousa march, and then the ‘Star-spangled Banner’ again. It must be an American millionaire, and he’s evidently got a very big price for it; he’s just beaming and chuckling with satisfaction.”
“We must ask him who has bought it,” said Mrs. Nougat-Jones.
“Hush! no, don’t. Let’s buy some of his sketches, quick, before we are supposed to know that he’s famous; otherwise he’ll be doubling the prices. I am so glad he’s had a success at last. I always believed in him, you know.”