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perfect certainty that they would hear no more of the
transaction.
Among resident artists he enjoyed celebrity of a non-
professional sort. He had spent more money - no less than
three individual fortunes, it was whispered - than any of his
associates could ever hope to gain. Apart from his colonial
career, he had been to Greece in a brigantine with four brass
carronades; he had travelled Europe in a chaise and four,
drawing bridle at the palace-doors of German princes; queens
of song and dance had followed him like sheep and paid his
tailor's bills. And to behold him now, seeking small loans
with plaintive condescension, sponging for breakfast on an
art-student of nineteen, a fallen Don Juan who had neglected
to die at the propitious hour, had a colour of romance for
young imaginations. His name and his bright past, seen
through the prism of whispered gossip, had gained him the
nickname of THE ADMIRAL.
Dick found him one day at the receipt of custom, rapidly
painting a pair of hens and a cock in a little water-colour
sketching box, and now and then glancing at the ceiling like
a man who should seek inspiration from the muse. Dick
thought it remarkable that a painter should choose to work
over an absinthe in a public cafe, and looked the man over.
The aged rakishness of his appearance was set off by a
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