Be that as it may, however, the fact was imperative that only three months of the hated bond remained, and that some working substitute for the hated bond would have to be discovered at their expiration.

Simla, in short, must be made to buy Armour's pictures, to appreciate them, if the days of miracle were not entirely past, but to buy them any way.

On one or two occasions I had already made Simla buy things.

I had cleared out young Ludlow's stables for him in a week--he had a string of ten--when he played polo in a straw hat and had to go home with sunstroke; and I once auctioned off all the property costumes of the Amateur Dramatic Society at astonishing prices.

Pictures presented difficulties which I have hinted at in an earlier chapter, but I did not despair.