“I like your water-colours. Did you collect them yourself?”
“Yes.”
“I congratulate you on your taste. This is a beauty. Who is it by?”
The appreciation brought Doggie at once to his side. Oliver, the connoisseur, was showing himself in a new and agreeable light. Doggie took him delightedly round the pictures, expounding their merits and their little histories. He found that Oliver, although unlearned, had a true sense of light and colour and tone. He was just beginning to like him, when the tactless fellow, stopping before the collection of little dogs, spoiled everything.
“My holy aunt!” he cried—an objurgation which Doggie had abhorred from boyhood—and he doubled with laughter in his horrid schoolboy fashion—“My dear Doggie—is that your family? How many litters?”
“It’s the finest collection of the kind in the world,” replied Doggie stiffly, “and is worth several thousand pounds.”
Oliver heaved himself into a chair—that was Doggie’s impression of his method of sitting down—a Sheraton chair with delicate arms and legs.
“Forgive me,” he said, “but you’re such a funny devil.”—Doggie gaped. The conception of himself as a funny devil was new.—“Pictures and music I can understand. But what the deuce is the point of these dam little dogs?”
But Doggie was hurt. “It would be useless to try to explain,” said he.
Oliver took off his hat and sent it skimming on to the couch.