Who is Lord Darrell? I never heard of him! For Heaven's sake don't get caught by a title. Do you know any of the servants? His butler or his secretary? The fellow who catalogues the library is useful. Do recollect that lots of the ornaments in those Mayfair houses are fastened to the wall. That is where your dear father failed over the large Chinese jar in Park Street…. Your mother would never forgive me if you were to get into another of your boyish scrapes.
There is another little matter, my dear Ormond, which I wish you to lay to heart very seriously. Now do take an old man's advice and do not get up upon your Quixotic hobby-horse the moment you sniff what it is—for I suppose you have guessed it already. Yes, it is what you feared: I want to urge you to follow your mother's ardent wish and add commission business to your other work. I know very well that young men must dream their dreams, but the world is what it is, and after all there is nothing so very dreadful in the commission side of our profession. You do not come into direct relation with the collectors of curios and church ornaments: there is always an agent to break the crudeness of the connexion. And it is a certain and profitable source of income with none of the risks attached to it that the older branches of the profession unfortunately show. Moreover, it affords excellent opportunities for foreign travel, and gives one a special position very difficult to define, but easily appreciable among one's colleagues.
George Burton made to my knowledge three thousand pounds last year in a short season; he got this very large commission without the necessity of breaking into a single public-house; he earned it entirely upon objects taken out of churches upon the Continent, and in only three cases had he to pick a pocket. It would have hurt him very much with his knowledge and tastes to have had to break a stained-glass window.
Do consider this, my dear Ormond, for your mother's sake. Don't think for a moment that I am advising you to take up any of those forms of work which we both agree in despising, and which are quite unworthy of your traditions, as for instance stealing pictures on commission out of the houses of dealers and then turning detective to recover them again. It is much too easy work for a man of your talents, much too ill-paid, and much too dangerous. It is all very well for the picture dealer to leave the door open, but what if the policeman is not in the know? No, you will always find me on your side in your steady refusal to have anything to do with this kind of business.
Ormond, my dear lad, bear me no ill-will. It is true of every profession, of the Bar and of the City, of homicide, medicine, the Services, even Politics—everything, that success only comes slowly, and that the experience of older men is the key to it.
Tomorrow is Ascension Day, and I am at leisure. Come and dine with me at the Colonial Club at eight for eight-fifteen. I will show you a magnificent littla tanagra I picked up yesterday, and we will talk about the new prospectus.
God bless you! (Dress.)
Your affectionate Uncle
THE MONKEY QUESTION: AN APPEAL TO COMMON SENSE
A privileged body slips so easily into regarding its privileges as common rights that I fear the plea which the SIMIAN LEAGUE repeats in this pamphlet will still sound strange in the ears of many, though the work of the League has been increasingly successful and has reached yearly a wider circle of the educated public since its foundation by Lady Wayne in 1902. We desire to place before our fellow-citizens the claims of Monkeys, and we hope once more that nothing we say may seem extreme or violent, for we know full well what poor weapons violence and passion are in the debate of a practical political matter.