"I'll bet there'd be some danger in you, my friend!" says I.
The light went out of his face. "Mention it not," he said sternly. "Once it was my misfortune to kill a man—you are not offended at my speech?"
"Not on your family portraits!—but, of course, I couldn't know—you ain't put out, for your part?"
"Only what is right I should be—what is it your great poet says—'bears yet a precious jewel in its head'? So with me. To walk with a ghost has done me no harm. In pity for myself, I pity others. But this is a melancholy talk—come, I shall show you my pictures. Some are wonderful, all are good."
So we went into the fine old house again and saw the paintings. They were beyond my calculations. Outside of the things Sax never finished and bar a chromo or two, I'd never seen a picture—I don't count the grandfathers' portraits at home—decent people enough, them and their wives, but not what you'd call beautiful except Great-Grandmother De La Tour—she was a corker.
Seeing that I enjoyed 'em, Perez explained the pictures to me, what were the good points. When I've told people the names on the pictures in Perez's gallery, I've simply been told I lied.
Next Perez said, "You like music, Señor Saunders?"
"You bet!" says I. So he led the way into a room off the gallery. It was a long, high room rounded at one end, with an arched ceiling. The least whisper in there rang clear. At the round end was an organ. Perez called; a little Injun boy came to pump the organ.
Perez seated himself on the bench. "Now," said he, "if only we had Arthur—foolish fellow! Here is this great house with only one small man in it! I beg him to live here, but he will not—he says he must live in a place rough, as you saw."
"I'm inclined to think Sax knows his pasture, Mr. Perez," I answered.