The postcard artist has ended by imagining everything as it might have been.
"If it were not for the houses," says the postcard artist to himself, "this might have been a picturesque old High street of mediaeval aspect." So he draws a picture of the High street as it might have been.

The lover of quaint architecture travels out of his way to see it, and when he finds it and contrasts it with the picture postcard he gets mad.

I bought a postcard myself once representing the market place of a certain French town.

It seemed to me, looking at the postcard, that I hadn't really seen France--not yet.

I travelled nearly a hundred miles to see that market place.