One day a tall, slender, black-haired, black-mustached and black-eyed young man, in a severely ministerial black frock suit, dropped off the train and inquired in an undoubted foreign accent for the Atlas Hotel. Even the station loungers recognized him at once as the great and long-expected artist, Signor Vittoreo Matteo, who, save in the one respect of short hair, was thoroughly satisfying to the eye and imagination. Even before the spreading of his name upon the register of the Atlas Hotel, all Blakeville knew that he had arrived.

In the hotel office he met J. Rufus. Instantly he shrieked for joy, embraced Wallingford, kissed that discomfited gentleman upon both cheeks and fell upon his neck, jabbering in most broken English his joy at meeting his dear, dear friend once more. In the privacy of Wallingford’s own room, Wallingford’s [Pg 280]dear Italian friend threw himself upon the bed and kicked up his heels like a boy, stuffing the corner of a pillow in his mouth to suppress his shrieks of laughter.

“Ain’t I the regular buya-da-banan Dago for fair?” he demanded, without a trace of his choice Italian accent.

“Blackie,” rejoiced Wallingford, wiping his eyes, “I never met your parents, but I’ve a bet down that they came from Naples as ballast in a cattle steamer. But I’m afraid you’ll strain yourself on this. Don’t make it too strong.”

“I’ll make Salvini’s acting as tame as a jointed crockery doll,” asserted Blackie. “This deal is nuts and raisins to me; and say, J. Rufus, your sending for me was just in the nick of time. Just got a tip from a post-office friend that the federal officers were going to investigate my plant, so I’m glad to have a vacation. What’s this new stunt of yours, anyhow?”

“It’s a cinch,” declared Wallingford, “but I don’t want to scramble your mind with anything but the story of your own life.”

To his own romantic, personal history, as Vittoreo Matteo, and to the interesting fabrications about the [Pg 281]world-famous Etruscan pottery, in the village of Etrusca, near Milan, Italy, Blackie listened most attentively.

“All right,” said he at the finish; “I get you. Now lead me forth to the merry, merry villagers.”

Behind the spanking bays which had made Fannie Bubble the envied of every girl in Blakeville, Wallingford drove Blackie forth. Already many of the faithful had gathered at the site of the Blakeville Etruscan Studios in anticipation of the great Matteo’s coming, and when the tall, black-eyed Italian jumped out of the buggy they fairly quivered with gratified curiosity. How well he looked the part! If only he had had long hair! The eyes of the world-famous Italian ceramic expert, however, were not for the assembled denizens of Blakeville; they were only for that long and eagerly desired deposit of Etruscan soil. He leaped from the buggy; he dashed through the gap in the fence; he rushed to the side of that black swamp, the edges of which had evaporated now until they were but a sticky mass, and said:

“Oh, da g-r-r-a-a-n-da mod!”

Forthwith, disregarding his cuffs, disregarding his rings, disregarding everything, he plunged both [Pg 282]his white hands into that sticky mass and brought them up dripping-full of that precious material—the genuine, no, better than genuine, Etruscan black mud!

A cheer broke out from assembled Blakeville. This surely was artistic frenzy! This surely was the emotional temperament! This surely was the manner in which the great Italian black-pottery expert should act in the first sight of his beloved black mud!

“Da gr-r-r-r-r-a-a-n-da mod!” he repeated over and over, and drew it close to his face that he might inspect it with a near and loving eye.

One might almost have thought that he was about to kiss it, to bury his nose in it; one almost expected him to jump into that pond and wallow in it, his joy at seeing it was so complete.

It was J. Rufus Wallingford himself who, catching the contagion of this superb fervor, ran to the pail of drinking-water kept for the foundation workmen, and brought it to the great artist. J. Rufus himself poured water upon the great artist’s hands until those hands were free of their Etruscan coating, and with his own immaculate handkerchief he dried those deft and skilful fingers, while the great [Pg 283]Italian potter looked up into the face of his business manager with almost tears in his eyes!

It was a wonderful scene, one never to be forgotten, and in the enthusiasm of that psychological moment Mrs. Moozer rushed forward. Mrs. Moozer, acting president of the Women’s Culture Club in the absence of Miss Forsythe, saw here a glorious opportunity; here was where she could “put one over” upon that all-absorptive young lady.

“My dear Mr. Wallingford, you must introduce me at once!” she exclaimed. “I............