For the sum of ten shillings each Miss Strubble acquired the drawings of the camel dying in Upper Berkeley Street and of the giraffes quenching their thirst in Trafalgar Square; at the same price Mrs. Nougat-Jones secured the study of roosting sand-grouse. A more ambitious picture, Wolves and Wapiti Fighting on the Steps of the Athenaeum Club , found a purchaser at fifteen shillings.

“And now what are your plans?” asked a young man who contributed occasional paragraphs to an artistic weekly.

“I go back to Stolpmünde as soon as the ship sails,” said the artist, “and I do not return. Never.”

“But your work? Your career as painter?”

“Ah, there is nossing in it. One starves. Till today I have sold not one of my sketches. Tonight you have bought a few, because I am going away from you, but at other times, not one.”