THE AMERICAN
"Of course they do. They're great things, these parasols. They understand detail out here."
"Where do you buy them?"
"Anywhere, everywhere."
"Well, Tristram, I'm glad to get hold of you. I guess you can tell me a good deal. I suppose you know Paris pretty correctly," Newman pursued.
Mr. Tristram's face took a rosy light. "Well, I guess there are not many men that can show me much. I 'll take care of you."
"It's a pity you were not here a few minutes ago. I've just bought a picture. You might have put the thing through for me."
"Bought a picture? said Mr. Tristram, looking vaguely round the walls. "Why, do they sell them?"
"I mean a copy."
"Oh, I see. These"—and Mr. Tristram nodded at the Titians and Vandykes—"these, I suppose, are originals?"
"I hope so," said Newman. "I don't want a copy of a copy."
"Ah," his friend sagaciously returned, "you can never tell. They imitate, you know, so deucedly well. It's like the jewellers with their false stones. Go into the Palais Royal there; you see 'Imitation' on half the windows. The law obliges them to stick it on, you know; but you can't tell the things apart. To tell the truth," Mr. Tristram continued—and his grimace seemed a turn of the screw of discrimination—"I don't do so very much in pictures. They're one of the things I leave to my wife."
"Ah, you've acquired a wife?"
19
