He never said a tremendous or maybe an unwell-natured element in his lifestyles. but then he was splendidly8504ca0e3fb5bfcdbdf1e8263f0c30ef, with his crisp brown hair, his 665ffa919c35bfa66744e335c03b7855 profile, and his grey eyes. He became as popular with guys as he changed into with women and he had every accomplishment exceptthat of being profitable. His father had bequeathed him his cavalry sword and a records of the Peninsular warfare in fifteen volumes. Hughie hung the primary over his searching-glass, put the second one on a shelf among Ruff’s guide and Bailey’s mag, and lived on hundred a 12 months that an antique aunt allowed him. He had attempted the whole lot. He had long past at the stock trade for 6 months; but what was a butterfly to do amongst bulls and bears? He have been a tea-service provider for a bit longer, but had soon tired of pekoe and souchong. Then he had attempted selling dry sherry. That did now not answer; the sherry turned into a bit too dry. in the long run he became not anything, a delightful, ineffectual young man with a great profile and no career.
To make subjects worse, he turned into in love. The lady he cherished become Laura Merton, the daughter of a retired Colonel who had lost his mood and his digestion in India, and had by no means discovered both of them once more. Laura cherished him, and he become ready to kiss her shoe-strings. They had been the handsomest couple in London, and had now not a penny-piece between them. The Colonel changed into very keen on Hughie, but could now not hear of any engagement.
‘Come to me, my boy, if you have were given ten thousand kilos of your personal, and we will see about it,’ he used to say; and Hughie looked very glum in those days, and had to go to Laura for comfort.
One morning, as he turned into on his manner to Holland Park, where the Mertons lived, he dropped in to look a fantasticpal of his, Alan Trevor. Trevor was a painter. indeed, few humans break out that nowadays. however he becameadditionally an artist, and artists are rather uncommon. in my view he turned into a strange tough fellow, with a freckled face and a purple ragged beard. but, while he took up the brush he became a real grasp, and his pictures had been eagerly trendy. He have been very plenty attracted through Hughie at the start, it ought to be stated, totally as a result of his non-public allure. ‘The handiest people a painter have to recognise,’ he used to say, ‘are people who are bête and delightful, folks who are an artistic pleasure to take a look at and an highbrow repose to speak to. men who are dandies and ladieswho are darlings rule the arena, at the least they have to achieve this.’ however, after he got to recognize Hughie better, he favored him pretty as an awful lot for his brilliant, buoyant spirits and his beneficiant, reckless nature, and had given him the permanent entrée to his studio.
when Hughie got here in he observed Trevor placing the completing touches to a brilliant existence-size photograph of a beggar-man. The beggar himself was standing on a raised platform in a nook of the studio. He was a wizened vintage guy, with a face like wrinkled parchment, and a maximum piteous expression. Over his shoulders changed into flung a coarsebrown cloak, all tears and tatters; his thick boots have been patched and cobbled, and with one hand he leant on a difficultstick, while with the alternative he held out his battered hat for alms.
‘What an tremendous version!’ whispered Hughie, as he shook arms with his buddy.
‘An remarkable version?’ shouted Trevor on the pinnacle of his voice; ‘I need to suppose so! Such beggars as he aren't to be met with every day. A trouvaille, mon cher; a living Velasquez! My stars! what an etching Rembrandt might have manufactured from him!’
‘bad antique chap!’ said Hughie, ‘how depressing he appears! however I assume, to you painters, his face is his fortune?’
‘really,’ answered Trevor, ‘you don’t need a beggar to appearance happy, do you?’
‘How an awful lot does a version get for sitting?’ asked Hughie, as he determined himself a relaxed seat on a divan.
‘A shilling an hour.’
‘and what sort of do you get on your picture, Alan?’
‘Oh, for this i get thousand!’
‘kilos?’
‘Guineas. Painters, poets, and physicians continually get guineas.’
‘properly, I think the model have to have a percent,’ cried Hughie, laughing; ‘they paintings pretty as hard as you do.’
‘Nonsense, nonsense! Why, have a look at the trouble of laying at the paint alone, and standing all day lengthy at one’s easel! It’s all thoroughly, Hughie, for you to talk, but I guarantee you that there are moments whilst artwork nearly attains to the respect of manual labour. however you mustn’t chatter; I’m very busy. Smoke a cigarette, and keep quiet.’
After some time the servant came in, and instructed Trevor that the framemaker desired to talk to him.
‘Don’t run away, Hughie,’ he said, as he went out, ‘I might be returned in a moment.’
The antique beggar-man took gain of Trevor’s absence to rest for a moment on a timber bench that turned into in the back of him. He looked so forlorn and wretched that Hughie could not help pitying him, and felt in his pockets to see what money he had. All he ought to locate turned into a sovereign and some coppers. ‘terrible antique fellow,’ he thought to himself, ‘he desires it greater than I do, but it manner no hansoms for a fortnight’; and he walked throughout the studio and slipped the sovereign into the beggar’s hand.
The antique guy began, and a faint smile flitted across his withered lips. ‘thanks, sir,’ he stated, ‘thanks.’
Then Trevor arrived, and Hughie took his go away, blushing a little at what he had done. He spent the day with Laura, got a fascinating scolding for his extravagance, and had to stroll home.
That night time he strolled into the Palette membership approximately 11 o’clock, and found Trevor sitting by way ofhimself inside the smoking-room consuming hock and seltzer.
‘properly, Alan, did you get the picture completed all right?’ he stated, as he lit his cigarette.
‘completed and framed, my boy!’ spoke back Trevor; ‘and, by means of the bye, you have got made a conquest. That antique version you saw is pretty dedicated to you. I had to tell him all about you—who you're, in which you stay, what your income is, what potentialities you have—’
‘My pricey Alan,’ cried Hughie, ‘I shall probable find him watching for me after I pass home. but of path you're handiestjoking. terrible antique wretch! I wish I ought to do some thing for him. I assume it is dreadful that any one must be so depressing. i have were given lots of vintage clothes at domestic—do you think he would take care of any of them? Why, his rags have been falling to bits.’
‘but he appears superb in them,’ said Trevor. ‘I wouldn’t paint him in a frock coat for anything. What you call rags I nameromance. What seems poverty to you is picturesqueness to me. however, I’ll tell him of your provide.’
‘Alan,’ stated Hughie seriously, ‘you painters are a heartless lot.’
‘An artist’s coronary heart is his head,’ replied Trevor; ‘and except, our enterprise is to realise the sector as we see it, now not to reform it as we understand it. À chacun son métier. And now tell me how Laura is. The old version become prettyinterested in her.’
‘You don’t suggest to mention you talked to him about her?’ stated Hughie.
‘absolutely I did. He knows all about the relentless colonel, the simple Laura, and the £10,000.’
‘You told that old beggar all my personal affairs?’ cried Hughie, looking very pink and indignant.
‘My dear boy,’ said Trevor, smiling, ‘that antique beggar, as you name him, is one of the richest men in Europe. He couldpurchase all London to-morrow without overdrawing his account. He has a residence in every capital, dines off gold plate, and might save you Russia going to conflict while he chooses.’
‘What in the world do you imply?’ exclaimed Hughie.
‘What I say,’ said Trevor. ‘The antique guy you noticed to-day in the studio was Baron Hausberg. he's a super friend of mine, buys all my pix and that sort of element, and gave me a fee a month ago to color him as a beggar. Que voulez-vous? la fantaisie d’un millionnaire! and i must say he made a outstanding determine in his rags, or perhaps I need to say in my rags; they are an antique healthy I got in Spain.’
‘Baron Hausberg!’ cried Hughie. ‘good heavens! I gave him a sovereign!’ and he sank into an armchair the photo of dismay.
‘Gave him a sovereign!’ shouted Trevor, and he burst right into a roar of laughter. ‘My expensive boy, you’ll in no way see it again. Son affaire c’est l’argent des autres.’
‘I think you would possibly have advised me, Alan,’ stated Hughie sulkily, ‘and not have allow me make this sort of idiot of myself.’
‘nicely, to begin with, Hughie,’ said Trevor, ‘it by no means entered my mind that you went approximately distributingalms in that reckless way. i will recognize your kissing a quite model, however your giving a sovereign to an unsightly one—with the aid of Jove, no! besides, the reality is that I clearly changed into not at domestic to-day to any person; and while you got here in I didn’t recognize whether or not Hausberg would like his call noted. he wasn’t in complete dress.’
‘What a duffer he have to think me!’ stated Hughie.
‘in no way. He was within the maximum spirits once you left; stored chuckling to himself and rubbing his vintage wrinkled hands together. I couldn’t make out why he changed into so interested to understand all about you; but I see all of it now. He’ll make investments your sovereign for you, Hughie, pay you the hobby each six months, and have a capital story to inform after dinner.’
‘i'm an unlucky devil,’ growled Hughie. ‘The nice factor i can do is to visit bed; and, my expensive Alan, you mustn’t tellany person. I shouldn’t dare show my face within the Row.’
‘Nonsense! It displays the best credit on your philanthropic spirit, Hughie. And don’t run away. Have another cigarette, and you can talk approximately Laura as a whole lot as you want.’
however, Hughie wouldn’t forestall, but walked domestic, feeling very sad, and leaving Alan Trevor in fits of laughter.
the subsequent morning, as he was at breakfast, the servant added him up a card on which was written, ‘Monsieur Gustave Naudin, de la element de M. le Baron Hausberg.’ ‘I assume he has come for an apology,’ said Hughie to himself; and he toldthe servant to expose the traveller up.
An antique gentleman with gold spectacles and gray hair got here into the room, and said, in a mild French accent, ‘Have I the respect of addressing Monsieur Erskine?’
Hughie bowed.
‘i have come from Baron Hausberg,’ he persisted. ‘The Baron—’
‘i beg, sir, that you will offer him my sincerest apologies,’ stammered Hughie.
‘The Baron,’ said the vintage gentleman with a smile, ‘has commissioned me to convey you this letter’; and he prolonged a sealed envelope.
at the outdoor become written, ‘a marriage gift to Hugh Erskine and Laura Merton, from an antique beggar,’ and internalturned into a cheque for £10,000.
once they were married Alan Trevor changed into the first-class man, and the Baron made a speech at the marriagebreakfast.
‘Millionaire models,’ remarked Alan, ‘are uncommon enough; but, through Jove, model millionaires are rarer nonetheless!’
To make subjects worse, he turned into in love. The lady he cherished become Laura Merton, the daughter of a retired Colonel who had lost his mood and his digestion in India, and had by no means discovered both of them once more. Laura cherished him, and he become ready to kiss her shoe-strings. They had been the handsomest couple in London, and had now not a penny-piece between them. The Colonel changed into very keen on Hughie, but could now not hear of any engagement.
‘Come to me, my boy, if you have were given ten thousand kilos of your personal, and we will see about it,’ he used to say; and Hughie looked very glum in those days, and had to go to Laura for comfort.
One morning, as he turned into on his manner to Holland Park, where the Mertons lived, he dropped in to look a fantasticpal of his, Alan Trevor. Trevor was a painter. indeed, few humans break out that nowadays. however he becameadditionally an artist, and artists are rather uncommon. in my view he turned into a strange tough fellow, with a freckled face and a purple ragged beard. but, while he took up the brush he became a real grasp, and his pictures had been eagerly trendy. He have been very plenty attracted through Hughie at the start, it ought to be stated, totally as a result of his non-public allure. ‘The handiest people a painter have to recognise,’ he used to say, ‘are people who are bête and delightful, folks who are an artistic pleasure to take a look at and an highbrow repose to speak to. men who are dandies and ladieswho are darlings rule the arena, at the least they have to achieve this.’ however, after he got to recognize Hughie better, he favored him pretty as an awful lot for his brilliant, buoyant spirits and his beneficiant, reckless nature, and had given him the permanent entrée to his studio.
when Hughie got here in he observed Trevor placing the completing touches to a brilliant existence-size photograph of a beggar-man. The beggar himself was standing on a raised platform in a nook of the studio. He was a wizened vintage guy, with a face like wrinkled parchment, and a maximum piteous expression. Over his shoulders changed into flung a coarsebrown cloak, all tears and tatters; his thick boots have been patched and cobbled, and with one hand he leant on a difficultstick, while with the alternative he held out his battered hat for alms.
‘What an tremendous version!’ whispered Hughie, as he shook arms with his buddy.
‘An remarkable version?’ shouted Trevor on the pinnacle of his voice; ‘I need to suppose so! Such beggars as he aren't to be met with every day. A trouvaille, mon cher; a living Velasquez! My stars! what an etching Rembrandt might have manufactured from him!’
‘bad antique chap!’ said Hughie, ‘how depressing he appears! however I assume, to you painters, his face is his fortune?’
‘really,’ answered Trevor, ‘you don’t need a beggar to appearance happy, do you?’
‘How an awful lot does a version get for sitting?’ asked Hughie, as he determined himself a relaxed seat on a divan.
‘A shilling an hour.’
‘and what sort of do you get on your picture, Alan?’
‘Oh, for this i get thousand!’
‘kilos?’
‘Guineas. Painters, poets, and physicians continually get guineas.’
‘properly, I think the model have to have a percent,’ cried Hughie, laughing; ‘they paintings pretty as hard as you do.’
‘Nonsense, nonsense! Why, have a look at the trouble of laying at the paint alone, and standing all day lengthy at one’s easel! It’s all thoroughly, Hughie, for you to talk, but I guarantee you that there are moments whilst artwork nearly attains to the respect of manual labour. however you mustn’t chatter; I’m very busy. Smoke a cigarette, and keep quiet.’
After some time the servant came in, and instructed Trevor that the framemaker desired to talk to him.
‘Don’t run away, Hughie,’ he said, as he went out, ‘I might be returned in a moment.’
The antique beggar-man took gain of Trevor’s absence to rest for a moment on a timber bench that turned into in the back of him. He looked so forlorn and wretched that Hughie could not help pitying him, and felt in his pockets to see what money he had. All he ought to locate turned into a sovereign and some coppers. ‘terrible antique fellow,’ he thought to himself, ‘he desires it greater than I do, but it manner no hansoms for a fortnight’; and he walked throughout the studio and slipped the sovereign into the beggar’s hand.
The antique guy began, and a faint smile flitted across his withered lips. ‘thanks, sir,’ he stated, ‘thanks.’
Then Trevor arrived, and Hughie took his go away, blushing a little at what he had done. He spent the day with Laura, got a fascinating scolding for his extravagance, and had to stroll home.
That night time he strolled into the Palette membership approximately 11 o’clock, and found Trevor sitting by way ofhimself inside the smoking-room consuming hock and seltzer.
‘properly, Alan, did you get the picture completed all right?’ he stated, as he lit his cigarette.
‘completed and framed, my boy!’ spoke back Trevor; ‘and, by means of the bye, you have got made a conquest. That antique version you saw is pretty dedicated to you. I had to tell him all about you—who you're, in which you stay, what your income is, what potentialities you have—’
‘My pricey Alan,’ cried Hughie, ‘I shall probable find him watching for me after I pass home. but of path you're handiestjoking. terrible antique wretch! I wish I ought to do some thing for him. I assume it is dreadful that any one must be so depressing. i have were given lots of vintage clothes at domestic—do you think he would take care of any of them? Why, his rags have been falling to bits.’
‘but he appears superb in them,’ said Trevor. ‘I wouldn’t paint him in a frock coat for anything. What you call rags I nameromance. What seems poverty to you is picturesqueness to me. however, I’ll tell him of your provide.’
‘Alan,’ stated Hughie seriously, ‘you painters are a heartless lot.’
‘An artist’s coronary heart is his head,’ replied Trevor; ‘and except, our enterprise is to realise the sector as we see it, now not to reform it as we understand it. À chacun son métier. And now tell me how Laura is. The old version become prettyinterested in her.’
‘You don’t suggest to mention you talked to him about her?’ stated Hughie.
‘absolutely I did. He knows all about the relentless colonel, the simple Laura, and the £10,000.’
‘You told that old beggar all my personal affairs?’ cried Hughie, looking very pink and indignant.
‘My dear boy,’ said Trevor, smiling, ‘that antique beggar, as you name him, is one of the richest men in Europe. He couldpurchase all London to-morrow without overdrawing his account. He has a residence in every capital, dines off gold plate, and might save you Russia going to conflict while he chooses.’
‘What in the world do you imply?’ exclaimed Hughie.
‘What I say,’ said Trevor. ‘The antique guy you noticed to-day in the studio was Baron Hausberg. he's a super friend of mine, buys all my pix and that sort of element, and gave me a fee a month ago to color him as a beggar. Que voulez-vous? la fantaisie d’un millionnaire! and i must say he made a outstanding determine in his rags, or perhaps I need to say in my rags; they are an antique healthy I got in Spain.’
‘Baron Hausberg!’ cried Hughie. ‘good heavens! I gave him a sovereign!’ and he sank into an armchair the photo of dismay.
‘Gave him a sovereign!’ shouted Trevor, and he burst right into a roar of laughter. ‘My expensive boy, you’ll in no way see it again. Son affaire c’est l’argent des autres.’
‘I think you would possibly have advised me, Alan,’ stated Hughie sulkily, ‘and not have allow me make this sort of idiot of myself.’
‘nicely, to begin with, Hughie,’ said Trevor, ‘it by no means entered my mind that you went approximately distributingalms in that reckless way. i will recognize your kissing a quite model, however your giving a sovereign to an unsightly one—with the aid of Jove, no! besides, the reality is that I clearly changed into not at domestic to-day to any person; and while you got here in I didn’t recognize whether or not Hausberg would like his call noted. he wasn’t in complete dress.’
‘What a duffer he have to think me!’ stated Hughie.
‘in no way. He was within the maximum spirits once you left; stored chuckling to himself and rubbing his vintage wrinkled hands together. I couldn’t make out why he changed into so interested to understand all about you; but I see all of it now. He’ll make investments your sovereign for you, Hughie, pay you the hobby each six months, and have a capital story to inform after dinner.’
‘i'm an unlucky devil,’ growled Hughie. ‘The nice factor i can do is to visit bed; and, my expensive Alan, you mustn’t tellany person. I shouldn’t dare show my face within the Row.’
‘Nonsense! It displays the best credit on your philanthropic spirit, Hughie. And don’t run away. Have another cigarette, and you can talk approximately Laura as a whole lot as you want.’
however, Hughie wouldn’t forestall, but walked domestic, feeling very sad, and leaving Alan Trevor in fits of laughter.
the subsequent morning, as he was at breakfast, the servant added him up a card on which was written, ‘Monsieur Gustave Naudin, de la element de M. le Baron Hausberg.’ ‘I assume he has come for an apology,’ said Hughie to himself; and he toldthe servant to expose the traveller up.
An antique gentleman with gold spectacles and gray hair got here into the room, and said, in a mild French accent, ‘Have I the respect of addressing Monsieur Erskine?’
Hughie bowed.
‘i have come from Baron Hausberg,’ he persisted. ‘The Baron—’
‘i beg, sir, that you will offer him my sincerest apologies,’ stammered Hughie.
‘The Baron,’ said the vintage gentleman with a smile, ‘has commissioned me to convey you this letter’; and he prolonged a sealed envelope.
at the outdoor become written, ‘a marriage gift to Hugh Erskine and Laura Merton, from an antique beggar,’ and internalturned into a cheque for £10,000.
once they were married Alan Trevor changed into the first-class man, and the Baron made a speech at the marriagebreakfast.
‘Millionaire models,’ remarked Alan, ‘are uncommon enough; but, through Jove, model millionaires are rarer nonetheless!’
No comments:
Post a Comment