“What will he be a source of for that poor innocent wife of his, when she finds him out?”
“That's true. Her life is a hell.”
“And tell me this: Suppose you had this choice put before you: Either to go through life and find all the pictures bad, but all the men and women good, or to go through life and find all the pictures good and the men and women rotten. Which would you choose?”
“That's a devilish difficult question, Paddy. The pictures are so agreeable, and the good people so infernally disagreeable and mischievous, that I really can't undertake to say off-hand which I should prefer to do without.”
“Come, come! none of your cleverness with me: I'm too old for it. Blenkinsop isn't that sort of good man; and you know it.”
“It would be simpler if Blenkinsop could paint Dubedat's pictures.”
“It would be simpler still if Dubedat had some of Blenkinsop's honesty. The world isn't going to be made simpler for you, my lad: you must take it as it is.”
After further discussion, Sir Patrick finally poses the issue in clear-cut terms:
“It's a plain choice between men and pictures.”
“It's easier to replace a dead man than a good picture,” parries Ridgeon.