When Love Calls by Stanley J. Weyman

Author:Stanley J. Weyman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620127063
Publisher: Duke Classics

The Invisible Portraits

*

On a certain morning in last June I was stooping to fasten a shoe-lace, having taken advantage for the purpose of the step of a corner house in St. James's Square, when a man passing behind me stopped.

"Well!" said he, aloud, after a short pause during which I wondered—I could not see him—what he was doing, "the meanness of these rich folk is disgusting! Not a coat of paint for a twelvemonth! I should be ashamed to own a house and leave it like that!"

The man was a stranger to me, and his words seemed as uncalled for as they were ill-natured. But being thus challenged I looked at the house. It was a great stone mansion with a balustrade atop, with many windows and a long stretch of area railings. And certainly it was shabby. I turned from it to the critic. He was shabby too—a little red-nosed man wearing a bad hat. "It is just possible," I suggested, "that the owner may be a poor man and unable to keep it in order."

"Ugh! What has that to do with it?" my new friend answered contemptuously. "He ought to think of the public."

"And your hat?" I asked with winning politeness. "It strikes me, an unprejudiced observer, as a bad hat. Why do you not get a new one?"

"Cannot afford it!" he snapped out, his dull eyes sparkling with rage.

"Cannot afford it? But, my good man, you ought to think of the public."

"You tom-cat! What have you to do with my hat? Smother you!" was his kindly answer; and he went on his way muttering things uncomplimentary.

I was about to go mine, and was first falling back to gain a better view of the house in question, when a chuckle close to me betrayed the presence of a listener, a thin, gray-haired man, who, hidden by a pillar of the porch, must have heard our discussion. His hands were engaged with a white tablecloth, from which he had been shaking the crumbs. He had the air of an upper servant of the best class. As our eyes met he spoke.

"Neatly put, sir, if I may take the liberty of saying so," he observed with a quiet dignity it was a pleasure to witness, "and we are very much obliged to you. The man was a snob, sir."

"I am afraid he was," I answered; "and a fool too."

"And a fool, sir. Answer a fool after his folly. You did that, and he was nowhere; nowhere at all, except in the swearing line. Now might I ask," he continued, "if you are an American, sir?"

"No, I am not," I answered; "but I have spent some time in the States."

I could have fancied that he sighed.

"I thought—but never mind, sir," he began. "I was wrong. It is curious how very much alike gentlemen, that are real gentlemen, speak. Now, I dare swear, sir, that you have a taste for pictures."

I was inclined to humor the old fellow's mood.

"I like a good picture, I admit," I said.

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