Sam's heart leaped to his throat, but Jack's face never showed a
wrinkle.

"Thanks; much obliged, but I'll hold on to it for a while. I'm not
through with it yet."

"If you decide to sell it will you let me know?"

"Yes," said Jack, grimly, and picking up the canvas and carrying it
across the room, he turned its face to the wall.

While Sam was bowing the millionnaire out (there was nothing but the
Monet, of course, which he wanted now that he couldn't buy it), Jack
occupied the minutes in making a caricature of His Finance on a
fresh canvas.

Sam's opening sentences on his return, out of breath with his run back
up the three flights of stairs, were not complimentary. They began by
impeaching Jack's intelligence in terms more profane than polite, and
ended in the fervent hope that he make an instantaneous visit to His
Satanic Majesty.

In the midst of this discussion--in which one side roared his
displeasure and the other answered in pantomime between shouts of his
own laughter--there came another knock at the door, and the owner of the
Monet walked in. He, too, was in a disturbed state of mind. He had heard
some things during the day bearing directly on Jack's credit, and had
brought a bill with him for the value of the picture.