'"Boys," said Carl, "do these pictures lack merit? Answer me that."

'"No!"

'"Aren't they of very great and high merit? Answer me that."

'"Yes."

'"Of such great and high merit that, if an ill.u.s.trious name were attached to them they would sell at splendid prices. Isn't it so?"

'"Certainly it is. n.o.body doubts that."

'"But--I'm not joking--isn't it so?"

'"Why, of course it's so--and we are not joking. But what of it. What of it? How does that concern us?"

'"In this way, comrades--we'll attach an ill.u.s.trious name to them!"

'The lively conversation stopped. The faces were turned inquiringly upon Carl. What sort of riddle might this be? Where was an ill.u.s.trious name to be borrowed? And who was to borrow it?

'Carl sat down, and said:

'"Now, I have a perfectly serious thing to propose. I think it is the only way to keep us out of the almshouse, and I believe it to be a perfectly sure way. I base this opinion upon certain mult.i.tudinous and long-established facts in human history. I believe my project will make us all rich."

'"Rich! You've lost your mind."

'"No, I haven't."

'"Yes, you have--you've lost your mind. What do you call rich?"

'"A hundred thousand francs apiece."

'"He has lost his mind. I knew it."

'"Yes, he has. Carl, privation has been too much for you, and--"

'"Carl, you want to take a pill and get right to bed."

'"Bandage him first--bandage his head, and then--"

'"No, bandage his heels; his brains have been settling for weeks--I've noticed it."

'"Shut up!" said Millet, with ostensible severity, "and let the boy have his say. Now, then--come out with your project, Carl. What is it?"

'"Well, then, by way of preamble I will ask you to note this fact in human history: that the merit of many a great artist has never been acknowledged until after he was starved and dead. This has happened so often that I make bold to found a law upon it. This law: that the merit of every great unknown and neglected artist must and will be recognised and his pictures climb to high prices after his death. My project is this: we must cast lots--one of us must die."

'The remark fell so calmly and so unexpectedly that we almost forgot to jump. Then there was a wild chorus of advice again--medical advice--for the help of Carl's brain; but he waited patiently for the hilarity to calm down, and then went on again with his project:

'"Yes, one of us must die, to save the others--and himself. We will cast lots. The one chosen shall be ill.u.s.trious, all of us shall be rich. Hold still, now--hold still; don't interrupt--I tell you I know what I am talking about. Here is the idea. During the next three months the one who is to die shall paint with all his might, enlarge his stock all he can--not pictures, no! skeleton sketches, studies, parts of studies, fragments of studies, a dozen dabs of the brush on each--meaningless, of course, but his, with his cipher on them; turn out fifty a day, each to contain some peculiarity or mannerism easily detectable as his--they're the things that sell, you know, and are collected at fabulous prices for the world's museums, after the great man is gone; we'll have a ton of them ready--a ton! And all that time the rest of us will be busy supporting the moribund, and working Paris and the dealers--preparations for the coming event, you know; and when everything is hot and just right, we'll spring the death on them and have the notorious funeral.

You get the idea?"

'"N-o; at least, not qu--"

'"Not quite? Don't you see? The man doesn't really die; he changes his name and vanishes; we bury a dummy, and cry over it, with all the world to help. And I--"

'But he wasn't allowed to finish. Everybody broke out into a rousing hurrah of applause; and all jumped up and capered about the room and fell on each other's necks in transports of grat.i.tude and joy. For hours we talked over the great plan, without ever feeling hungry; and at last, when all the details had been arranged satisfactorily, we cast lots and Millet was elected--elected to die, as we called it. Then we sc.r.a.ped together those things which one never parts with until he is betting them against future wealth--keepsake trinkets and suchlike--and these we p.a.w.ned for enough to furnish us a frugal farewell supper and breakfast, and leave us a few francs over for travel, and a stake of turnips and such for Millet to live on for a few days.

'Next morning, early, the three of us cleared out, straightway after breakfast--on foot, of course. Each of us carried a dozen of Millet's small pictures, purposing to market them. Carl struck for Paris, where he would start the work of building up Millet's name against the coming great day. Claude and I were to separate, and scatter abroad over France.

'Now, it will surprise you to know what an easy and comfortable thing we had. I walked two days before I began business. Then I began to sketch a villa in the outskirts of a big town--because I saw the proprietor standing on an upper veranda. He came down to look on--I thought he would. I worked swiftly, intending to keep him interested. Occasionally he fired off a little e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of approbation, and by-and-by he spoke up with enthusiasm, and said I was a master!

'I put down my brush, reached into my satchel, fetched out a Millet, and pointed to the cipher in the corner. I said, proudly:

'"I suppose you recognise that? Well, he taught me! I should think I ought to know my trade!"

'The man looked guiltily embarra.s.sed, and was silent. I said sorrowfully:

'"You don't mean to intimate that you don't know the cipher of Francois Millet!"

'Of course he didn't know that cipher; but he was the gratefullest man you ever saw, just the same, for being let out of an uncomfortable place on such easy terms. He said:

'"No! Why, it is Millet's, sure enough! I don't know what I could have been thinking of. Of course I recognise it now."

'Next, he wanted to buy it; but I said that although I wasn't rich I wasn't that poor. However, at last, I let him have it for eight hundred francs.'

'Eight hundred!'

'Yes. Millet would have sold it for a pork chop. Yes, I got eight hundred francs for that little thing. I wish I could get it back for eighty thousand. But that time's gone by. I made a very nice picture of that man's house and I wanted to offer it to him for ten francs, but that wouldn't answer, seeing I was the pupil of such a master, so I sold it to him for a hundred. I sent the eight hundred francs straight to Millet from that town and struck out again next day.

'But I didn't walk--no. I rode. I have ridden ever since. I sold one picture every day, and never tried to sell two. I always said to my customer:

'"I am a fool to sell a picture of Francois Millet's at all, for that man is not going to live three months, and when he dies his pictures can't be had for love or money."

'I took care to spread that little fact as far as I could, and prepare the world for the event.

'I take credit to myself for our plan of selling the pictures--it was mine. I suggested it that last evening when we were laying out our campaign, and all three of us agreed to give it a good fair trial before giving it up for some other. It succeeded with all of us. I walked only two days, Claude walked two--both of afraid to make Millet celebrated too close to home--but Carl walked only half a day, the bright, conscienceless rascal, and after that he travelled like a duke.

'Every now and then we got in with a country editor and started an item around through the press; not an item announcing that a new painter had been discovered, but an item which let on that everybody knew Francois Millet; not an item praising him in any way, but merely a word concerning the present condition of the "master"--sometimes hopeful, sometimes despondent, but always tinged with fears for the worst. We always marked these paragraphs, and sent the papers to all the people who had bought pictures of us.

'Carl was soon in Paris and he worked things with a high hand. He made friends with the correspondents, and got Millet's condition reported to England and all over the continent, and America, and everywhere.

'At the end of six weeks from the start, we three met in Paris and called a halt, and stopped sending back to Millet for additional pictures. The boom was so high, and everything so ripe, that we saw that it would be a mistake not to strike now, right away, without waiting any longer. So we wrote Millet to go to bed and begin to waste away pretty fast, for we should like him to die in ten days if he could get ready.

'Then we figured up and found that among us we had sold eighty-five small pictures and studies, and had sixty-nine thousand francs to show for it. Carl had made the last sale and the most brilliant one of all.

He sold the "Angelus" for twenty-two hundred francs. How we did glorify him!--not foreseeing that a day was coming by-and-by when France would struggle to own it and a stranger would capture it for five hundred and fifty thousand, cash.

'We had a wind-up champagne supper that night, and next day Claude and I packed up and went off to nurse Millet through his last days and keep busybodies out of the house and send daily bulletins to Carl in Paris for publication in the papers of several continents for the information of a waiting world. The sad end came at last, and Carl was there in time to help in the final mournful rites.

'You remember that great funeral, and what a stir it made all over the globe, and how the ill.u.s.trious of two worlds came to attend it and testify their sorrow. We four--still inseparable--carried the coffin, and would allow none to help. And we were right about that, because it hadn't anything in it but a wax figure, and any other coffin-bearers would have found fault with the weight. Yes, we same old four, who had lovingly shared privation together in the old hard times now gone for ever, carried the cof--'