She did not know that this man was more dangerous than a thousand curates.
"Is this Mr.Leek's ?" he inquired smilingly, and raised his hat.
"Yes," said Alice with a responsive smile.
"Is he in ?" "Well," said Alice, "he's busy at his work.

You see in this weather he can't go out much--not to work--and so he--" "Could I see him in his studio ?" asked the glossy man, with the air of saying, "Can you grant me this supreme favour ?" It was the first time that Alice had heard the attic called a studio.
She paused.
"It's about pictures," explained the visitor.
"Oh!" said Alice.

"Will you come in ?" "I've run down specially to see Mr.Leek," said the visitor with emphasis.
Alice's opinion as to the seriousness of her husband's gift for painting had of course changed in two years.

A man who can make two or three hundred a year by sticking colours anyhow, at any hazard, on canvases-- by producing alleged pictures that in Alice's secret view bore only a comic resemblance to anything at all--that man had to be taken seriously in his attic as an artisan.

It is true that Alice thought the payment he received miraculously high for the quality of work done; but, with this agreeable Jew in the hall, and the _coupe_ at the kerb, she suddenly perceived the probability of even greater miracles in the matter of price.