"The profits?" inquired old Boreas, too far north to lose sight of the main chance.
"Will be shared among the subscribers."
"By what rule?"
"Short division," was the answer.
"This building on the right is Somerset House, where the Royal Academy holds its annual exhibition of British artists, at which persons pay a shilling to view their own portraits that have cost most exorbitant sums, if painted by popular professors of the art."
"A noble institution," said the South, in simplicity of soul, "and most encouraging to rising talent."
"Very," was the devilish dry reply.
"And where young exhibitors have fine opportunities afforded them to profit by the experience, skill, and fostering care of their superiors."
"Exactly," said the Devil, with a malicious smile. "In the arrangement and distribution of the pictures the committee show an intimate knowledge of 'light and shade,' which is particularly instructive to others. They appropriate all the 'light' to their own pictures, and the 'shade' to their neighbours'. Yonder dirty-looking gate is Temple-bar, where in the olden time traitors' heads stood in goodly row, as plentiful as the portraits in the Exhibition, only that the 'bodies' never came to own them. But"—and here the Devil sighed like a furnace—"innovation and improvement have destroyed all venerable customs."
So, venting his regrets, they journeyed down Fleet-street, when the attention of the gentle South was attracted to the large gloomy edifice which is so prominent in that locality.