'Why, yes, it's like,' replied Sponge, seeing which way his host wanted it; 'it's like, certainly; the want of expression in the eye makes such a difference between a bust and a picture.'
'True,' replied Jawleyford, comforted—'true,' repeated he, looking affectionately at it; 'I should say it was very like—like as anything can be. You are rather too much above it there, you see; sit down here,' continued he, leading Sponge to an ottoman surrounding a huge model of the column in the Place Vendôme, that stood in the middle of the room—'sit down here now, and look, and say if you don't think it like?'
'THIS, OF COURSE, YOU KNOW?'
'Oh, very like,' replied Sponge, as soon as he had seated himself. 'I see it now, directly; the mouth is yours to a T.'
'And the chin. It's my chin, isn't it?' asked Jawleyford.
'Yes; and the nose, and the forehead, and the whiskers, and the hair, and the shape of the head, and everything. Oh! I see it now as plain as a pikestaff,' observed Sponge.
'I thought you would,' rejoined Jawleyford comforted—'I thought you would; it's generally considered an excellent likeness—so it should, indeed, for it cost a vast of money—fifty guineas! to say nothing of the lotus-leafed pedestal it's on. That's another of me,' continued Jawleyford, pointing to a bust above the fireplace, on the opposite side of the gallery; 'done some years since—ten or twelve, at least—not so like as this, but still like. That portrait up there, just above the "Finding of Moses," by Poussin,' pointing to a portrait of himself attitudinizing, with his hand on his hip, and frock-coat well thrown back, so as to show his figure and the silk lining to advantage, 'was done the other day, by a very rising young artist; though he has hardly done me justice, perhaps—particularly in the nose, which he's made far too thick and heavy; and the right hand, if anything, is rather clumsy; otherwise the colouring is good, and there is a considerable deal of taste in the arrangement of the background, and so on.'