Thank goodness, I didn't
put a date on any of these things. I won't sell any more. I'd take an
oath never to paint again, only I know I should go and break it next
week. I shall rely on this famous discretion of yours to say
nothing--nothing whatever.
EBAG. I'm afraid it's too late.
CARVE. How too late?
EBAG. I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to state publicly that you are
Ilam Carve, and that there must have been--er--some misapprehension,
somewhere, over that funeral.
CARVE. (Aghast.) Publicly? Why?
EBAG. It's like this, I've been selling those pictures to Texel in New
York. You remember, he's always been one of your principal collectors.
He's getting old, and he's half-blind, but he still buys. Now, I rely on
my judgment, and I guaranteed those pictures to be genuine Carves.
Well, somebody over there must have had suspicions.
CARVE. What does that matter? There isn't a date on any of them.
EBAG. Just so. But in one of those pictures there's most distinctly a
taxi-cab. It isn't a private motor car.
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