erratic desecration to shove pictures indiscriminately together like
that! . . . Lack of space was no excuse. Millet's "Angelus," "Ally
Sloper at the Derby," a splendid lithograph of "The Angel of Pity at the
Well of Cawnpore," Lottie Collins, scantily attired, in her song and
dance "Tara-ra-ra-boom-de-ay," Sir Frederick Leighton's "Wedded," a
gruesome depiction of a Chinese execution at Canton, an old-fashioned
engraving of that dashing, debonair cavalry officer, "Major Hodson," of
Indian Mutiny fame, George Robey, as a nurse-maid, wheeling Little Tich
in a perambulator, the grim, torture-lined face of Slatin Pasha, a
ridiculously obscene picture entitled "Two coons scoffing oysters for a
wager," that glorious edifice the "Taj Mahal" of India, and so on.
"Divarsiment" indeed!

To this ill-assorted admixture three exceptions only were grouped with
any sense of reason. The central picture was a beautifully coloured
reproduction of Sir Hubert Herkomer's famous masterpiece "The Last
Muster." Lovers of art subjects are doubtless familiar with this
immortal painting. It depicts a pathetic congregation of old,
white-haired, war-worn pensioners attending divine service in the chapel
of Old Chelsea Hospital, with the variegated lights from the
stained-glass windows flooding them with soft gentle colours. Flanking
it on either side were portraits of the original founders of this
historical institution in 1692--Charles II (The Merry Monarch) and his
kindly-hearted "light o' love" Sweet Nell Gwynn of Old Drury.

With curiously mixed feelings George finally tore himself away from
Yorke's pathetically grotesque attempt at wall-adornment. Strive as he
would within his soul to ridicule, the pictures seemed somehow almost to
shout at him with hidden meaning. As if a voice--a drunken voice, but
gentlemanly withall--was hiccuping in his ear: "Paradise Lost, old man!