第104章

"That is my name, Sir," said Hamel. "Here is my card. Perhaps you will do me the kindness to take it to Sir Thomas Tringle.""All right, old fellow; I know all about it. He has got Puxley with him from the Bank of England just at this moment. Come through into this room. He'll soon have polished off old Puxley." Tom was no more to Hamel than any other clerk, and he felt himself to be aggrieved; but he followed Tom into the room as he was told, and then prepared to wait in patience for the convenience of the great man. "So you and Lucy are going to make a match of it," said Tom.

This was terrible to Hamel. Could it be possible that all the clerks in Lombard Street talked of his Lucy in this way, because she was the niece of their senior partner? Were all the clerks, as a matter of course, instructed in the most private affairs of the Tringle family? "I am here in obedience to directions from Sir Thomas," said Hamel, ignoring altogether the impudent allusion which the young man had made.

"Of course you are. Perhaps you don't know who I am?""Not in the least," said Hamel.

"I am Thomas Tringle, junior," said Tom, with a little accession of dignity.

"I beg your pardon; I did not know," said Hamel.

"You and I ought to be thick", rejoined Tom, "because I'm going in for Ayala. Perhaps you've heard that before?"Hamel had heard it and was well aware that Tom was to Ayala an intolerable burden, like the old man of the sea. He had heard of Tom as poor Ayala's pet aversion -- as a lover not to be shaken off though he had been refused a score of times. Ayala was to the sculptor only second in sacredness to Lucy. And now he was told by Tom himself that he was -- "going in for Ayala". The expression was so distressing to his feelings that he shuddered when he heard it. Was it possible that anyone should say of him that he was "going in" for Lucy? At that moment Sir Thomas opened the door, and grasping Hamel by the hand led him away into his own sanctum.

"And now, Mr Hamel," said Sir Thomas, in his cheeriest voice, "how are you?" Hamel declared that he was very well, and expressed a hope that Sir Thomas was the same. "I am not so young as Iwas, Mr Hamel. My years are heavier and so is my work. That's the worst of it. When one is young and strong one very often hasn't enough to do. I daresay you find it so sometimes.""In our profession", said Hamel, "we go on working though very often we do not sell what we do.""That's bad," said Sir Thomas.

"It is the case always with an artist before he has made a name for himself. It is the case with many up to the last day of a life of labour. An artist has to look for that, Sir Thomas.""Dear me! That seems very sad. You are a sculptor, I believe?""Yes, Sir Thomas."

"And the things you make must take a deal of room and be very heavy." At this Mr Hamel only smiled. "Don't you think if you were to call an auction you'd get something for them?" At this suggestion the sculptor frowned but condescended to make no reply.

Sir Thomas went on with his suggestion. "If you and half a dozen other beginners made a sort of gallery among you, people would buy them as they do those things in the Marylebone Road and stick them up somewhere about their grounds. It would be better than keeping them and getting nothing." Hamel had in his studio at home an allegorical figure of Italia United, and another of a Prostrate Roman Catholic Church, which in his mind's eye he saw for a moment stuck here or there about the gardens of some such place as Glenbogie! Into them had been infused all the poetry of his nature and all the conviction of his intelligence. He had never dreamed of selling them. He had never dared to think that any lover of Art would encourage him to put into marble those conceptions of his genius which now adorned his studio, standing there in plaster of Paris. But to him they were so valuable, they contained so much of his thoughts, so many of his aspirations, that even had the marble counterparts been ordered and paid for nothing would have induced him to part with the originals. Now he was advised to sell them by auction in order that he might rival those grotesque tradesmen whose business it is to populate the gardens of wealthy but tasteless Britons! It was thus that the idea represented itself to him. He simply smiled; but Sir Thomas did not fail to appreciate the smile.

"And now about this young lady?" said Sir Thomas, not altogether in so good a humour as he had been when he began his suggestion.

"It's a bad look out for her when, as you say, you cannot sell your work when you've done it.""I think you do not quite understand the matter, Sir Thomas.""Perhaps not. It certainly does seem unintelligible that a man should lumber himself up with a lot of things which he cannot sell. A tradesman would know that he must get into the bankruptcy court if he were to go on like that. And what is sauce for the goose will be sauce for the gander also." Mr Hamel again smiled but held his tongue. "If you can't sell your wares how can you keep a wife?""My wares, as you call them, are of two kinds. One, though no doubt made for sale, is hardly saleable. The other is done to order. Such income as I make comes from the latter.""Heads," suggested Sir Thomas.

"Busts they are generally called."

"Well, busts. I call them heads. They are heads. A bust, I take it, is -- well, never mind." Sir Thomas found a difficulty in defining his idea of a bust. "A man wants to have something more or less like someone to put up in a church and then he pays you.""Or perhaps in his library. But he can put it where he likes when he has bought it.""Just so. But there ain't many of those come in your way, if I understand right.""Not as many as I would wish."