Volume Iii Part 1 (2/2)
”Yes, Wolff, I did once think of that; but since that time I have seen that real Chamber of Horrors, the National Portrait Gallery. I should not like to send her there,” he said, as he pointed to the portrait of wicked Bab Chudleigh, who simpered and smiled at him from the wall. ”No, Wolff, I shouldn't like my pictures to be hawked about as loans to one East End or provincial exhibition after another, to be sneered at by crowds of unappreciating yokels. It's a very heavy responsibility, Wolff.”
At this moment Reginald Haggard entered the gallery.
”I hear, my lord,” he said, as he shook hands with the old n.o.bleman, ”that you have hung the last long-sought treasure this morning. Is it really so?”
The old lord nodded.
”I suppose you will begin the weeding process now?” continued Haggard.
The old man drew himself up a little stiffly. ”If you can indicate to me anything that is unworthy, you will confer an obligation; but I think you'll find it difficult. In my opinion, Haggard,” he continued, ”and in the opinion of others far better able to judge than I am, there is nothing here requiring weeding out.”
Haggard slightly flushed.
”I can only plead my ignorance,” he said; ”it is what most connoisseurs do.”
”Yes, there you're quite right; but most men begin collecting as the amus.e.m.e.nt of their old age. I began it sixty years ago, and I'm afraid my long life's labour is over, and that, useless old man that I am, I've lived too long already.”
”You look upon things in a melancholy light, my lord.”
”No man is pleased when he finds his occupation gone; and perhaps it's a little sad to me to find that you care for none of these things.”
”I know you wouldn't wish me to affect an interest I do not feel,” said Haggard with an ingenuous smile.
”No, there you're right. For we should find him out, shouldn't we, Wolff?”
The doctor of philosophy laughed. ”It is our business to detect shams,”
he said. ”Yes, I think we should have found you out.”
”Then, Dr. Wolff, you'd better try your skill on Lucius; he poses as a man of taste, I don't.”
At that moment the two young men entered the gallery.
”Here he is to answer for himself,” said Haggard; ”and I'll leave him to your tender mercies. If he be a sham Priest of Art, unfrock him by all means, Dr. Wolff,” said Haggard with a laugh, as he sauntered away.
The two young men greeted their aged relative with respect, and nodded familiarly to Dr. Wolff.
”I verily believe, my lord, that this younger brother of mine has no soul,” said young Lucius Haggard; ”he actually tells me that the contemplation of pictures produces in him naught but headache.”
”And a pain in the neck, Lucius; don't forget the pain in the neck,”
said his brother.
”Yes, his pain in his neck was his other symptom. He declares he sees more beauty in a sunlit rustic hedge than in a landscape by Claude Lorraine.”
”And I added to my criminality, I fear, Dr. Wolff, by declaring that I only liked a picture when it gave pleasure to my eyes, as does the wicked wanton on the wall yonder,” he added, kissing the tips of his fingers to Mistress Barbara Chudleigh.
”Ach, my young friend, do not glory in being a _Philister_,” sighed Dr.
Wolff.
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