"Eh?" said Philip. "Did I? I believe I did. Well, let's get it in first. We can settle that afterwards. Has Dadley come?"
So the wardrobe was got into the hall, where it was left for the present among Philip's corded and labeled painting-gear.
"Has Dadley come?" Philip asked again.
"Yes. He's been waiting for you for ten minutes in the studio," Monty replied.
"Bon. I don't suppose I shall be more than ten minutes, but don't wait for tea. I've had a cup as a matter of fact."
"Can't say I think much of old Daddy as a framer——" Monty was beginning; but Esdaile was already at the studio door, which he closed carefully behind him.
You may remember the name of old William Dadley. It was he who, when Mr. Harry Westbury had held forth in the Saloon Bar about the danger to property from the air, had ventured to suggest that lives too had their value. His shop was the little one in the King's Road with the alleged Old Master in the window, one half of it black with ancient grime, the other pitilessly restored; and, as Monty had said, artists who were in any hurry to see their pictures back again seldom took their framing to old Daddy. Unless they went farther afield, they were more likely to patronize the up-to-date establishment across the road, kept by the two pushing young men in the Sinn Fein hats and black satin bows and little side-whiskers and hair bobbed like girls'.
And now for the discussion on picture-framing that took place between Philip Esdaile and William Dadley, behind the closed studio door.