"All stacked up pell-mell in the back yard and regarded in amazement by the neighbours."
It was the first of June and ordinarily hot when Lord Dankmere and Quarren, stripped to their shirts and armed with pincers, chisels and hammers, attacked the packing cases in the backyard, observed from the back fences by several astonished cats.
His lordship was not expert at manual labour; neither was Quarren; and some little blood was shed from the azure veins of Dankmere and the ruddier integument of the younger man as picture after picture emerged from its crate, some heavily framed, some merely sagging on their ancient un-keyed stretchers.
There were primitives on panels, triptychs, huge canvases in frames carved out of solid wood; pictures in battered Italian frames—some floridly Florentine, some exquisitely inlaid on dull azure and rose—pictures in Spanish frames, Dutch frames, English frames, French frames of the last century; portraits, landscapes, genre, still life—battle pictures, religious subjects, allegorical canvases, mythological—all stacked up pell-mell in the backyard and regarded in amazement by the neighbours, and by two young men who alternately smoked and staunched their wounds under the summer sky.
"Dankmere," said Quarren at last, "did your people send over your entire collection?"
"No; but I thought it might be as well to have plenty of rubbish on hand in case a demand should spring up.... What do they look like to you, Quarren—I mean what's your first impression?"
"They look all right."
"Really?"