Thus a week passed by and he had
visited ten galleries and seen upward of five thousand pictures. Not one
painting or drawing of them all was missed or hurried over; he compared
each with its number in the catalogue, then studied it carefully to see if
any hint or suggestion of Joan appeared in it. Her Christian name often met
his scrutiny in titles, and those works thus designated he regarded with
greater attention than any others; but the week passed fruitlessly, and
Joe, making a calculation at the termination of it, discovered that, at his
present rate of progression, it would be possible to inspect no more than
half of the galleries set down before his funds were exhausted. The
knowledge quickened his ingenuity and he discovered a means by which future
labors might be vastly modified and much time saved. He already knew that
the man responsible for Joan's destruction was called John; his mind now
quickened with the recollection of this important fact, and henceforth he
did a thing which any man less unintelligent had done from the first: he
scanned his catalogues without troubling about the pictures, and only
concerned himself with those canvases whose painters had "John" for their
Christian names. He thanked God on his knees that the idea should have
entered his mind, for his labors were thereby enormously lightened.
Notwithstanding, through ignorance of his subject, Joe wasted a great deal
of time and money.
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