Mr. Sponge entered accordingly, and found himself at the end of a gallery fifty feet by twenty, and fourteen high, lighted by skylights and small windows round the top. There were fires in handsome Caen-stone chimney-pieced fireplaces on either side, a large timepiece and an organ at the far end, and sundry white basins scattered about, catching the drops from the skylights.
'Hang the rain!' exclaimed Jawleyford, as he saw it trickling over a river scene of Van Goyen's (gentlemen in a yacht, and figures in boats), and drip, drip, dripping on to the head of an infant Bacchus below.
'He wants an umbrella, that young gentleman,' observed Sponge, as Jawleyford proceeded to dry him with his handkerchief.
'Fine thing,' observed Jawleyford, starting off to a side, and pointing to it; 'fine thing—Italian marble—by Frère—cost a vast of money—was offered three hundred for it. Are you a judge of these things?' asked Jawleyford; 'are you a judge of these things?'
'A little,' replied Sponge, 'a little'; thinking he might as well see what his intended father-in-law's personal property was like.
'There's a beautiful thing!' observed Jawleyford, pointing to another group. 'I picked that up for a mere nothing—twenty guineas—worth two hundred at least. Lipsalve, the great picture-dealer in Gammon Passage, offered me Murillo's "Adoration of the Virgin and Shepherds," for which he showed me a receipt for a hundred and eighty-five, for it.'
'Indeed!' replied Sponge, 'what is it?'
'It's a Bacchanal group, after Poussin, sculptured by Marin. I bought it at Lord Breakdown's sale; it happened to be a wet day—much such a day as this—and things went for nothing. This you'll know, I presume?' observed Jawleyford, laying his hand on a life-size bust of Diana, in Italian marble.
'No, I don't,' replied Sponge.
'No!' exclaimed Jawleyford; 'I thought everybody had known this: this is my celebrated "Diana," by Noindon—one of the finest things in the world. Louis Philippe sent an agent over to this country expressly to buy it.'