He took in shows. He meandered through galleries. Without much attention to the topic at hand, he attended the occasional public lecture at Three Queens College or Briscoe Hall; it seemed to be something the well-heeled did in a university town like Shiz. He never took notes, although sometimes he tried mentally to assess his compounded interest for the quarter while the lecturer was nattering on.

Brrr especially enjoyed those presentations on the subject of art history, not least because the lights would go down when the gloriously colored illuminatums were to be cast upon a white plaster wall. In the darkened hall, no one could notice if Brrr was paying attention or not. Thus, freed of anxiety, he found he did appreciate the lectures. And he stayed awake, unlike some.

His earliest love was for manuscript pages. “A singularly fine example of the monk known to us now only as the Ur-Scribe. This from Shiz’s most antique bound codex,” droned the master. “Notice the three-ply wreathing adorning the left margin. Green foil made from the crushed talons of dragons, very rare; and observe the flecks of gold as well: a hint that the artist still possessed Lurlinist tendencies, though the early unionist text posits the Unnamed God’s superior station.”

“And the blue on the third strand?” asked a woman of a certain age, decked out in blue furs herself, fluffing a storm cloud around her chin.

“Perhaps a kind of alibi color, to throw those sniffing for heresy off the scent,” replied the master. “We can only speculate.”

“Perhaps he liked blue,” said the aging dilettante. Her eye was bright and, yes, blue. “I certainly do. I find it…stimulating.”

“If we might proceed,” said the master wearily.

Brrr talked to the woman at the reception hour. “He’s so distinguished, our guest scholar,” she gushed, “but he thinks me crass. He won’t find time in his research schedule to visit my newly decorated salon-oh, it’s divine, eighteen panels of bleached pearlwood-and help me decide on what to hang. And where. I’m so cross with him.”

“Have you a fine collection?” asked Brrr.

“I’ve no eye to decide if it’s fine or not,” she replied. “Why don’t you come have a look, tell me what you think?”

When he said he would, she introduced herself as Miss Piarsody Scallop. She was rather long in the tooth to be a Miss, and he wondered if he might have been invited to her home for reasons other than art appreciation. Nonetheless, he took a risk, and discovered Miss Scallop to be genuinely rich, and genuinely interested in-if paralyzed by-the ambiguities and obscurities of art.

Thus he finally found out that he did possess a native skill, that mysterious commodity known as a good eye. Cousin, perhaps, to perfect pitch, or a sixth sense. He became adroit at buying and selling small prints and sketches and advising ladies of leisure about the works gracing the walls of their salons. He could turn a tidy profit in the bargain, and he did. He lived off his interest and never touched his capital.