"No. Not the one with the green back--that contains my Rembrandt
etchings, Mr. Hartright. Do you like etchings? Yes? So glad we
have another taste in common. The portfolio with the red back,
Louis. Don't drop it! You have no idea of the tortures I should
suffer, Mr. Hartright, if Louis dropped that portfolio. Is it
safe on the chair? Do YOU think it safe, Mr. Hartright? Yes? So
glad. Will you oblige me by looking at the drawings, if you
really think they are quite safe. Louis, go away. What an ass
you are. Don't you see me holding the tablettes? Do you suppose I
want to hold them? Then why not relieve me of the tablettes
without being told? A thousand pardons, Mr. Hartright; servants
are such asses, are they not? Do tell me--what do you think of the
drawings? They have come from a sale in a shocking state--I
thought they smelt of horrid dealers' and brokers' fingers when I
looked at them last. CAN you undertake them?"
Although my nerves were not delicate enough to detect the odour of
plebeian fingers which had offended Mr. Fairlie's nostrils, my
taste was sufficiently educated to enable me to appreciate the
value of the drawings, while I turned them over. They were, for
the most part, really fine specimens of English water-colour art;
and they had deserved much better treatment at the hands of their
former possessor than they appeared to have received.
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