For a truly fine painter, it strikes me that Garl Furtling has been blamed for a number of improbable occurrences which in all candour were not his fault.

If you find this hard to believe I give you the example of ‘The bashful maiden.’ Garl painted the picture but left the face off so the lady in question couldn’t be identified. This apparently was the lady’s preference.

I thought it was a nice touch. It created an aura of mystery and far more people were interested in the work than otherwise. It has often occurred to me that old Garl is a poet at heart; he has a knack of making shrewd moves like this.

The problem is that he then had to travel to Avitas where a wealthy client was preparing to cover him in silver just to have her portrait painted. He probably assumed he’d be gone a…