Punctually at eight o’clock next morning the lawyer rattled¹ (according to previous appointment) on the studio door. He found the artist sadly altered for the worse — bleached², bloodshot, and chalky — a man upon wires, the tail of his haggard eye still wandering to the closet. Nor was the professor of drawing less inclined to wonder at his friend. Michael was usually attired³ in the height of fashion, with a certain mercantile brilliancy best described perhaps as stylish⁴; nor could anything be said against him, as a rule, but that he looked a trifle too like a wedding guest to be quite a gentleman. Today he had fallen altogether from these heights. He wore a flannel⁵ shirt of washed-out shepherd’s tartan, and a suit of reddish tweeds, of the colour known to tailors as ‘heather mixture’; his neckcloth was black, and tied loosely in a sailor’s knot; a rusty⁶ ulster partly concealed⁷ these advantages; and his feet were shod with rough walking boots. His hat was an old soft felt, which he removed with a flourish as he entered.

‘Here I am, William Dent⁹!’ he cried, and drawing from his pocket two little wisps of reddish hair, he held them to his cheeks like sidewhiskers and danced about the studio with the filmy graces of a ballet-girl.

Pitman laughed sadly. ‘I should never have known you,’ said he.

‘Nor were you intended to,’ returned Michael, replacing his false whiskers in his pocket. ‘Now we must overhaul¹⁰ you and your wardrobe, and disguise you up to the nines.’

‘Disguise!’ cried the artist. ‘Must I indeed disguise myself. Has it come to that?’

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