Morniel gestured urbanely and strode to his easel. He pulled the tarp off. “I intend to call this—” and his voice had grown as oily as the subsoil of Texas—“Figured Figurines No. 29.”

Slowly, tastingly, Mr. Glescu opened his eyes and leaned forward. “But—” he said, after a long silence. “Surely this isn’t your work, Mr. Mathaway?”

Morniel turned around in surprise and considered the painting. “It’s my work, all right. Figured Figurines No. 29. Recognize it?”

“No,” said Mr. Glescu. “I do not recognize it. And that is a fact for which I am extremely grateful. Could I see something else, please? Something a little later?”

“That’s the latest,” Morniel told him a little uncertainly. “Everything else is earlier. Here, you might like this.” He pulled a painting out of the rack. “I call this Figured Figurines No. 22. I think it’s the best of my early period.”

Mr. Glescu shuddered. “It looks like smears of paint on top of other smears of paint.”

“Right! Only I call it smudge-on-smudge. But you probably know all that, being such an authority on me. And here’s Figured Figurines No.—”

“Do you mind leaving these—these figurines, Mr. Mathaway?” Glescu begged. “I’d like to see something of yours with color. With color and with form!”

Morniel scratched his head. “I haven’t done any real color work for a long time. Oh, wait!” he brightened and began to search in the back of the rack. He came out with an old canvas. “This is one of the few examples of my mauve-and-mottled period that I’ve kept.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Mr. Glescu murmured, mostly to himself. “It’s positively—” He brought his shoulders up to his ears in the kind of shrug that anyone who’s ever seen an art critic in action can immediately recognize. You don’t need words after that shrug; if you’re a painter whose work he’s looking at, you don’t want words.