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IF it had been necessary for Mr. Hector Bushell to make a fortune for himself there can be little doubt that he would have done it. fortunately or unfortunately—just as you please—the necessity did not exist, for his father had done it for him before he was born. Consequently, Hector, who was a genial if somewhat boisterous young man, devoted his talents to the service of his friends, whose happiness he insisted on promoting, with their concurrence or without it, by the exercise of his knowledge of the world and whatever was in it, his businesslike acumen, his exuberant animal spirits, and his overflowing, almost pestilential, energy. Quiet-mannered acquaintances who spied him afar dodged round corners and ran, rather than have their fortunes made by his vigorously-expressed advice, enforced by heavy slaps on the shoulder and sudden digs in the ribs, and sometimes punctuated with a hearty punch in the chest. For he was a large and strong, as well as a noisy, young man, accurately, if vulgarly, described by his acquaintance as perpetually "full of beans."

He had given himself a reputation as an art critic, on the strength of a year or two's attendance at an art school in Paris; and, indeed, he maintained a studio of his own, expensively furnished, where he received his friends and had more than once begun a picture. But his energies in this matter were mainly directed to the good of painters among his acquaintances, who were under the necessity of living by their work. He told them how their pictures should be painted, and how they could certainly be sold. Indeed, in this latter respect he did better than advise the painter—he advised the buyer, when he could seize one, and trundled him captive in the studio of his nearest friend with great fidelity and enthusiasm.

"The chance of your life, my dear sir!" he would say, snatching at the lapel of some wealthy friend's coat, and raising the other hand with an imminent threat of a slap on the shoulder. "The chance of your life! The coming man, I assure you! Something like an investment. A picture they'll offer you thousands for some day, and I do believe I can get it for you for a couple of hundred! Come and see it before some dealer gets in!"

It was with some such speech as this that he interrupted Mr. Higby Fewston, the margarine magnate, full of the report of the robbery a day before of a Gainsborough portrait from a house in Charles Street, Berkeley Square. Mr. Fewston was not the sort of man to take a deal of interest in pictures for their own sake, but the newspapers estimated the money value of the missing picture at twenty thousand pounds, and he found that very touching. He had the same respect for that Gainsborough, which he had never seen, that he would have had for a cheque for the sum signed by the firm of Rothschild; rather more, in fact, for if the cheque were stolen it might be stopped, and so rendered valueless; but there was no stopping the Gainsborough till you had caught the thief. So that Mr. Fewston found himself taking an unwonted interest in art; and when Hector Bushell, seizing the opportunity and pulling at his arm, drew him in the direction of Sydney Blenkinsop's studio, he offered less resistance than otherwise he might have done.

"Man named Blenkinsop," declaimed the zealous Hector. "Capital chap, and paints like—like a double archangel. His studio's close by—come and look for yourself. Of course, nothing need be said about buying the picture, if you don't want to. But just come and see it—I'll pretend we were passing and just dropped in. You'll have the sort of chance that people had in Gainsborough's own time. Why, I don't suppose he got more than a couple of hundred or so for the very picture the papers are so full of to-day!"

Mr. Fewston suffered himself to be dragged through many streets—the studio was not so near as Hector's enthusiasm made it seem—and finally into the presence of Mr. Sydney Blenkinsop, the painter. Blenkinsop was, by the side of Bushell, a comparatively quiet young man, not without apprehension of the possible consequences of his friend's devotion; for one never could tell what wild things Bushell might have been saying about one.

"Ah, Sydney, old boy!" cried that enthusiast. "How have you been all this time?" They had last met the day before, when Hector had hauled in some other possible patron. "How have you been? Just looked in as we were passing, you know—just looked in! This is my friend, Mr. Higby Fewston, much interested in art, and what he don't know about a picture—well, there! Working on anything just now, eh? I say"—this with a start of apprehension—"you haven't sold that picture yet, have you? The stunner, you know, the Keston?"

"Oh, that?" responded Blenkinsop, who had never sold a picture in his life. "No, I haven't. Not that one."

"Ah, plain enough Agnew hasn't been here lately. I'd like to have another look at it, old chap; probably sha'n't have another chance, unless it goes somewhere where I know the people. Ah, there now; look at that now!"

Mr. Fewston looked at it blankly. "It—it's a landscape," he said, presently, after consideration. The stolen Gainsborough had been a portrait, and Mr. Fcwston liked things up to sample.

"Rather!" replied Hector. "It is a landscape, as you say, and no mistake! Something like a landscape that, eh? I knew you'd like it, of course, having an eye for such a thing. Ah, it's a topper!"

He fell back by the side of the man of margarine, and the two inspected the marvel in silence, the one with head aside and a smile of ecstasy, and the other with all the expression of a cow puzzled by a painted field with nothing to eat on it. Sydney Blenkinsop shuffled uneasily.

Presently Mr. Fewston thought of something to say. "Where was it taken?" he asked.

"Keston Common," murmured Sydney faintly and "Keston Common" repeated Hector loudly, making the title sound like a fresh merit. He also drew attention to the wonderful effects of light in the picture, the extraordinary painting of the sky, the subtle suggestion of atmosphere, and the marvellous "values." Mr. Fewston listened patiently to the end. There was another pause longer and more awkward than the last; it seemed likely to endure till something burst in Sydney Blenkinsop. Then, at last, Mr. Higby Fewston spoke, weightily.

"Keston," he said, with solemn conviction, "is a place I don't like. There's a bad train service."

Such a criticism as this even Hector Bushell could not readily answer. He attempted to evade the point and returned again to his "values." But any reference to values unsupported by definite figures made little impression on the commercial mind of Mr. Fewston, and in a very few minutes more he drifted out, with Hector Bushell still in close attendance.

Hector, however, remained with the margarine Maecenas only long enough to discharge another volley of admiration for the picture, and took his leave at the first convenient corner. As a consequence he was back in five minutes, to discover Sydney Blenkinsop vengefully kicking a lay figure.

"Don't bring another chap like that to this place," cried the painter savagely, "or I'll pitch him out o' window!"

"My dear chap, don't be an ass! You've got no business instincts. A man like that's invaluable, if you can only kid him on. He'll buy any old thing, if he buys at all."

"If!"

"You're an ungrateful infidel. I tell you I'm going to sell that 'Keston Common' for you. What could you do with it by yourself?"

"Put a stick through it—burn it—anything! I'm sick of the whole business."

"Just what I expected. You could put a stick through it or burn it—and what's the good of that?"

"What's the harm? I can't sell it and they won't hang it at the shows; I know that before I send it."

"You know everything that's no use to you, and nothing that pays. You can burn a picture, but you can't sell it. Now, I'm going to sell that picture for you, if you'll let me. Will you?"

"You can do what you like with it."

"Done with you, my boy! I'll make you famous with it, and I'll get you money for it. I've an idea such as you couldn't invent in a lifetime. Shut up the shop now and we'll talk it over at the Café Royal. Come along. We'll have a little dinner out of the money I'm going to make for you. But you've to take orders from me, mind!"