“Listen to a word of common sense, Alfred, my boy. Men make coats—if you can properly call a tailor a man—but coats can never make men. You may dress an ass up in the grandest lion-skin going, but you can make nothing of him but an ass, nevertheless. In fact, I never believe a man’s a man till I’ve seen him with his coat off; then if he can use his fists as a man should, I believe in him.”
“Aha! I comprehend; ce monsieur refers to your English science of the box. Very clever science is the box; I am acquiring him of a professeur, who keeps a restaurant, what you call a public-house, in Smissfiel.”
As D’Almayne’s companion thus spoke, Horace seized the opportunity of introducing him, which he did as follows:—
“Allow me to make you acquainted with my friend, Monsieur Adolphe Guillemard, a gentleman connected with the financial interest in Paris, and with that of Europe generally.” Then, in a stage whisper, he added—“He was educated in Rothschild’s house.”
So Harry bowed, and Lord Alfred bowed, and Alice inclined her head in rather a stately manner, because she did not approve of Monsieur Guillemard’s roving eyes; and Monsieur Guillemard bowed and scraped, and laid his hand on his waistcoat, where his heart ought to have been, and abased his unappreciated optics, and appeared profoundly touched, and anxious to weep on the bosom of society at large; and Mr. Crane, who at that moment came up in his wife’s custody, not making allowance for foreign manners, thought he was in a fit. Then Monsieur Guillemard drew out his watch, and found he had an engagement at the Bourse, as he was pleased to call the Stock Exchange; and so took leave of his new acquaintance, squeezed both the yellow kid hands of his cher Horace, and with short, jaunty footsteps, as of a male ballet-dancer, quitted the spacious gallery, sacred to the noble efforts of the Amalgamated Amateurs. And when he had departed, of course his friends began to talk him over. D’Almayne drew Mr. Crane aside, and related to him wonderful anecdotes of his (Guillemard’s) skill in foreseeing political events and their consequences, and the splendid hits he had thus made in stock-jobbing for himself, and others who had wisely availed themselves of his talent, and what Baron Rothschild had said and thought of him; until Mr. Crane began to imagine him an incarnation of Mammon, and yearned to fall down and adore him on the spot. For, be it observed, parenthetically, that Mr. Crane, albeit nominally a member of the Established Church, was verily and indeed a worshipper of a certain golden calf, to whose likeness he had for years striven earnestly, and not unsuccessfully, to assimilate himself. And Harry remarked confidentially to Alice, Kate, and Lord Alfred, that he was prepared to bet a pony that Guillemard was neither more nor less than a “leg,” and that whoever had many dealings with him would be safe to put his or her foot in it—which sentence sounded like nonsense, but was only slang. And Lord Alfred laughed, and replied that Harry said so because he was jealous of the superior cut of Monsieur Guillemard’s garments. Alice agreed perfectly with her husband, which, Kate remarked, was the most original feature of the whole affair—an observation intended for a mild and playful jest, but at which Alice blushed, and Harry suddenly became engrossed by a spirited sketch, in very water-colours, of Ophelia as she appeared when drowning, which, according to the talented representation of Miss Appela Brown, H.S.A.A., was remarkably jolly, and slightly inebriated—next to which hung a portrait of Miss Brown herself, seated at her easel, her pre-Raphaelite countenance beaming with mingled talent and astonishment on the picture growing beneath her gifted brush—a compound expression, at which, as the subject was some demi-god, or other mythical celebrity, in heroic muscular proportions strongly developed, and nothing else, we can scarcely feel surprise. Then the whole party devoted their serious attention to the performances of the amalgamated ones, and were rewarded by beholding many fearful and wonderful things. There were “young gentlemen taken from life,” and transported by amalgamated magic into the regions of romance—an unlikeness of Snook’s ruddy face being affixed to Hamlet’s velvet body, or Mary Ann Jones’s very retroussé profile heading Joan of Arc’s steel bodice, and a select squadron of twelve French soldiers in green hunting-coats and fancy hats and feathers, prepared to “mourir pour la patrie” to any extent which the said Mary Ann might require of them. Then there were landscapes with gamboge foregrounds, pasturing comical cows of shapes and colours unknown to zoology; and middle distances, gloomy with indigo trees, and cast-iron rivulets purling rigidly over wild rocks, suggested by bald places, showing the naked paper through a severe application of sepia and neutral tint. Ferocious battles were there also, designed by gentle girls, who had never witnessed so much as a street row, wherein gallant Henri Quatre-like parties, with slim waists, feminine complexions, and white waving plumes, slaughtered strong men in funny dresses, and pranced over their dead bodies with the most heroic magnanimity and indifference. Then there was Mount Vesuvius during an eruption, which, to judge by the colouring, must have been the eruption attendant on scarlet fever; and Mont Blanc well iced, showing the mer de glace (the most difficult mare to mount on record, as “we know who” would say), and the last batch of proselytes from the Egyptian Hall sliding serenely down on their haunches, as wolves are reported to do, only the proselytes appear to have got the “advantage” of the wolves, by reason of their coat-tails. Scripture pieces, too, had some of these rash amateurs perpetrated, wherein “daughters of Babylon” appeared like the corps de ballet, and kings, prophets, and patriarchs had evidently found their prototypes in Mario, Lablache, and Tamburini—a fact which afforded Horace D’Almayne an opportunity of observing that it was charming to perceive in England the amiability of the Muses; as Apollo, the divinity of painting, instead of being driven to rugged nature for materials, or, worse still, compelled to fall back upon his own powers of invention, was obligingly supplied with them by Melpomene and Thalia; which same he and Mr. Crane thought a very smart saying—the former because he had made it himself, the latter because he did not understand it.
As they strolled on through the gallery, Kate took an opportunity, when Mr. Crane had relinquished her arm, in order to adjust his great-coat more to his satisfaction, to lag behind a few paces, glancing at D’Almayne as she did so, who immediately joined her.
“I have made the inquiry you wished,” he said in a low tone, “and I am truly glad to be able to assure you your sympathy has fallen on a deserving object; the poor woman is as she represented herself—a widow, with a family of young children depending upon her for support, and her poverty is extreme.”
“Many thanks for taking so much trouble,” returned Kate, in a tone of voice more cordial than she generally used towards her companion; “and now tell me how best I can assist them.”
“I have a plan, but can scarcely give you the details here; when would it be agreeable to you to”—(here his eye rested for a moment on Mr. Crane, contending with a button-hole)—“to resume the subject, and give me your opinion on my scheme?”
Kate reflected a moment, during which she struggled with an instinctive feeling, and deeming it reasonless, conquered it, then replied—