The main inconvenience I suffered at their hands was that, at first,
I was shy of letting them discover how my artful little servant had
begun to sit to me for "Rutland Ramsay." They knew that I had been
odd enough (they were prepared by this time to allow oddity to
artists,) to pick a foreign vagabond out of the streets, when I might
have had a person with whiskers and credentials; but it was some time
before they learned how high I rated his accomplishments. They found
him in an attitude more than once, but they never doubted I was doing
him as an organ-grinder. There were several things they never
guessed, and one of them was that for a striking scene in the novel,
in which a footman briefly figured, it occurred to me to make use of
Major Monarch as the menial. I kept putting this off, I didn't like
to ask him to don the livery--besides the difficulty of finding a
livery to fit him. At last, one day late in the winter, when I was
at work on the despised Oronte (he caught one's idea in an instant),
and was in the glow of feeling that I was going very straight, they
came in, the Major and his wife, with their society laugh about
nothing (there was less and less to laugh at), like country-callers--
they always reminded me of that--who have walked across the park
after church and are presently persuaded to stay to luncheon.
Luncheon was over, but they could stay to tea--I knew they wanted it.
The fit was on me, however, and I couldn't let my ardour cool and my
work wait, with the fading daylight, while my model prepared it. So
I asked Mrs. Monarch if she would mind laying it out--a request
which, for an instant, brought all the blood to her face. Her eyes
were on her husband's for a second, and some mute telegraphy passed
between them. Their folly was over the next instant; his cheerful
shrewdness put an end to it. So far from pitying their wounded
pride, I must add, I was moved to give it as complete a lesson as I