"I never thought, Wolff, that I should be spared to fill the last space on these walls. I certainly never expected to see the termination of my labours. In art one cannot be too exacting. We made up our minds years ago that there should be nothing doubtful here, and here is the only remaining space filled at last, and filled, as it should be, by a masterpiece. Yes," said the old nobleman, as he rubbed his hands, "thank heaven there is nothing doubtful here. Nothing remains for me now, Wolff, but to leave the treasures that it has been the labour of my life to accumulate; my sight isn't what it was."
"No man is what he was, my good friend and master, but it is not well to be sad. You set yourself a great task years ago, an almost superhuman task. He is aggomblished."
"No, not accomplished yet, Wolff. I have only got through a part of it. I have caught my white elephant, but what am I to do with him? I know too well that my natural heir looks upon the contents of these galleries but as so many hundred thousand pounds' worth of hard cash. He is an honest man, and makes no secret of it."
"But his son, my lord, the young Mr. Lucius?"
"Ah! he is a mystery, Wolff, that I have failed to fathom. We have known him, my friend, since he was a little child. I can't tell why, Wolff, I have never trusted him. Perhaps the aged are over-suspicious. I confess to you that if I thought he loved art for art's sake, he should have my pictures, as he will ultimately have my title and what goes with it."
"You can tie them up, my lord."
"Yes, I know I can tie them up, but then the pictures I've loved would suffer. Who will care for them, Wolff, when you and I are gone?"
"You have sometimes talked, my lord, of giving them en bloc to the nation."
"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."