"Thome little thing of Hoppner'th, if it mutht be," he replied with
confidence.

   "Hoppner," I murmured, "I seem to have heard the name."

   "Yeth; you'll hear it a bit oftener during the next eighteen month or
tho. You take care you don't get tired of hearing it, thath all," he
laughed.  "Yeth," he continued, thoughtfully, "Reynoldth ith played
out. Nothing much to be made of Gainthborough, either. Dealing in
that lot now, why, it'th like keeping a potht offith. Hoppner'th the
coming man."

   "You've been buying Hoppners up cheap," I suggested.

   "Between uth," he answered, "yeth, I think we've got them all. Maybe
a few more. I don't think we've mithed any."

   "You will sell them for more than you gave for them," I hinted.

   "You're thmart," he answered, regarding me admiringly, "you thee
through everything you do."

   "How do you work it?" I asked him. There is a time in the day when
he is confidential.  "Here is this man, Hoppner. I take it that you
have bought him up at an average of a hundred pounds a picture, and
that at that price most owners were fairly glad to sell. Few folks
outside the art schools have ever heard of him. I bet that at the
present moment there isn't one art critic who could spell his name
without reference to a dictionary. In eighteen months you will be
selling him for anything from one thousand to ten thousand pounds.
How is it done?"

   "How ith everything done that'th done well?" he answered.  "By
earnetht effort."  He hitched his chair nearer to me, "I get a chap—
one of your thort of chapth—he writ'th an article about Hoppner. I
get another to anthwer him. Before I've done there'll be a hundred
articleth about Hoppner—hith life, hith early thruggie, anecdo'th
about hith wife. Then a Hoppner will be thold at public auchtion for
a thouthand guineath."

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