SQUATTERS.
Ursula came into the study, carrying something that had once been a photograph, but which the ravages of time had long since reduced to a faded and almost indecipherable problem.
"Dear," she said, "you know this portrait of Clara's boy, the one in the sailor suit, from my writing-table? I was looking at it just now——"
I interrupted her (it really was one of my rushed mornings). "I've been looking at it any time these fifteen years," I observed bitterly, "watching it become every day more and more fly-blown and like nothing on earth. What entitles it to special notice at this moment?"
"Nothing—much," said Ursula; but from the tone of her voice experience taught me that sentiment was only just out of sight. "I was wondering whether to burn it——"
"Good."
"And then I thought that, as he was married the other day and is quite likely to have a boy of his own, it would be interesting to compare this early portrait."
"It would," I assented grimly. Perhaps disappointment had made me brutal. "There's almost nothing, from the Alps at midnight to Royalty down a coalmine, with which it would not be equally safe and appropriate to compare it. Only, as I gather that this involves its continued existence for a further indefinite period, my one request is that in the meantime you remove it. Shut it in the safe. Bury it. But don't leave it about."
"Aren't you being rather excited about nothing?"
"No. This is a matter of principle, and I am speaking for your own good. Fifteen years ago that photograph, unframed and in the first flush of youth, was casually deposited on your writing-table. Perhaps you only meant to put it out of your hand for a moment while you attended to something else. But you know what the result has been. It has remained there, gradually establishing a prescriptive right. No doubt it has been dusted, with the rest of the room, seven times a week...."