The Painting

                                                              THE PAINTING

                                                     HARRY THOMAS DANVERS

      It was sold over five times, for different prices and for different reasons.

      The first because it was not acceptable; the second because it filled a space, the third until the fifth, required an acumen of composite inquiries.

      The painting itself was twenty-seven inches square, of a colonial church, in a native village, in Latin America. It was not perfect, in the classic sense. Thus is was termed "primitive art "and that might have been the reason it was rejected in the New York gallery.  The owner's wife, however, liked it and insisted that it be put on the wall in their artist's loft, in the village. As such it filled a space.

      It was so highly praised by frequent guests at cocktail parties, that it was finally sold to a drunken Duchess, whose check later bounced and the work was recalled.  The next two scoundrels proved as unscrupulous as the first one and for the same unredeemable price it was sent back to the gallery, where it had made its début.

      It collected dust until the owner died and then his wife. The painter, who was a Maya native, had long ago perished in the civil war.

      It ended up for sale at a London auction and sold for a pittance. A few years later it appeared at Christies in New York and resold for a million dollars.