"The pattern exactly," said George, solemnly, "as supplied to His Majesty. Chosen by the Queen herself from among fourteen hundred stoves."
They passed along in procession, followed by menials ready to drag forth hidden treasures, strip and lay bare their beauty to the eye of Caroli.
Cost was nothing to the wealthy foreigner. He wanted beauty, and looked at everything with an artist's eye. Doubtless an hereditary trait of his noble ancestors.
"Without beauty I could not live," cried Caroli.
"Beauty is the very heart of life," echoed his friend.
"Those leaves are not real, but the artist's soul is in them," cried Caroli.
"They are the perfection of art," said his friend.
The leaves, which happened to be on a wrought-iron gate, were, George informed his customers, designed from a pattern originally executed by the King's sister.
With exclamation and acclamation, volubility on Caroli's part, and parrot-like earnestness on that of his friend, ingenious fiction by George Early, patient scribbling by the order clerk, and continuous perspiring by the menials, the best part of two hours went by before George led his noble patron to the chief office.
There the principals sat and talked, while the paid hirelings drew up a clean account of the goods chosen and their cost.