you will be put up to the simple elementary rules, and will have the professional gentleman’s last Rembrandt as a guide; the rest depends, my dear friend, on your powers of imitation.  Don’t be discouraged by failures, but try again and again; and mind you are dirty and dark enough.  You have heard a great deal about the light and shade of Rembrandt—­Remember always that, in your case, light means dusky yellow, and shade dense black; remember that, and—­”

“No pay,” said the voice of Mr. Pickup behind me; “no pay, my dear, unlesh your Rembrandt ish good enough to take me in—­even me, Ishmael, who dealsh in pictersh and knowsh what’sh what.”

What did I care about Rembrandt at that moment?  I was thinking of my lost young lady; and I should probably have taken no notice of Mr. Pickup, if it had not occurred to me that the old wretch must know her father’s name and address.  I at once put the question.  The Jew grinned, and shook his grisly head.  “Her father’sh in difficultiesh, and mum’s the word, my dear.”  To that answer he adhered, in spite of all that I could say to him.

With equal obstinacy I determined, sooner or later, to get my information.

I took service under Mr. Pickup, purposing to make myself essential to his prosperity, in a commercial sense—­and then to threaten him with offering my services to a rival manufacturer of Old Masters, unless he trusted me with the secret of the name and address.  My plan looked promising enough at the time.  But, as some wise person has said, Man is the sport of circumstances.  Mr. Pickup and I parted company unexpectedly, on compulsion.  And, of all the people in the world, my grandmother, Lady Malkinshaw, was the unconscious first cause of the events which brought me and the beloved object together again, for the third time!

CHAPTER VI.

On the next day, I was introduced to the Jew’s workshop, and to the eminent gentlemen occupying it.  My model Rembrandt was put before me; the simple elementary rules were explained; and my materials were all placed under my hands.

Regard for the lovers of the Old Masters, and for the moral well-being of society, forbids me to be particular about the nature of my labors, or to go into dangerous detail on the subject of my first failures and my subsequent success.  I may, however, harmlessly admit that my Rembrandt was to be of the small or cabinet size, and that, as there was a run on Burgomasters just then, my subject was naturally to be of the Burgomaster sort.  Three parts of my picture consisted entirely of different shades of dirty brown and black; the fourth being composed of a ray of yellow light falling upon the wrinkled face of a treacle-colored old man.  A dim glimpse of a hand, and a faint suggestion of something like a brass washhand basin, completed the job, which gave great satisfaction to Mr. Pickup, and which was described in the catalogue as—­