Armed with this he set forth and rang the bell of No. 233 King's Road, the private residence of Michael Finsbury. He had met the lawyer at a time of great public excitement in Chelsea; Michael, who had a sense of humour and a great deal of careless kindness in his nature, followed the acquaintance up, and, having come to laugh, remained to drop into a contemptuous kind of friendship.
By this time, which was four years after the first meeting, Pitman was the lawyer's dog.
'No,' said the elderly housekeeper, who opened the door in person, 'Mr Michael's not in yet. But ye're looking terribly poorly, Mr Pitman. Take a glass of sherry, sir, to cheer ye up.'
'No, I thank you, ma'am,' replied the artist. 'It is very good in you, but I scarcely feel in sufficient spirits for sherry. Just give Mr Finsbury this note, and ask him to look round--to the door in the lane, you will please tell him; I shall be in the studio all evening.'
And he turned again into the street and walked slowly homeward. A hairdresser's window caught his attention, and he stared long and earnestly at the proud, high--born, waxen lady in evening dress, who circulated in the centre of the show. The artist woke in him, in spite of his troubles.
'It is all very well to run down the men who make these things,' he cried, 'but there's a something--there's a haughty, indefinable something about that figure. It's what I tried for in my "Empress Eugenie",' he added, with a sigh.
And he went home reflecting on the quality. 'They don't teach you that direct appeal in Paris,' he thought. 'It's British. Come, I am going to sleep, I must wake up, I must aim higher--aim higher,' cried the little artist to himself. All through his tea and afterward, as he was giving his eldest boy a lesson on the fiddle, his mind dwelt no longer on his troubles, but he was rapt into the better land; and no sooner was he at liberty than he hastened with positive exhilaration to his studio.
Not even the sight of the barrel could entirely cast him down. He flung himself with rising zest into his work--a bust of Mr Gladstone from a photograph; turned (with extraordinary success) the difficulty of the back of the head, for which he had no documents beyond a hazy recollection of a public meeting; delighted himself by his treatment of the collar; and was only recalled to the cares of life by Michael Finsbury's rattle at the door.
'Well, what's wrong?' said Michael, advancing to the grate, where, knowing his friend's delight in a bright fire, Mr Pitman had not spared the fuel. 'I suppose you have come to grief somehow.'
'There is no expression strong enough,' said the artist. 'Mr Semitopolis's statue has not turned up, and I am afraid I shall be answerable for the money; but I think nothing of that--what I fear, my dear Mr Finsbury, what I fear--alas that I should have to say it! is exposure. The Hercules was to be smuggled out of Italy; a thing positively wrong, a thing of which a man of my principles and in my responsible position should have taken (as I now see too late) no part whatever.'
'This sounds like very serious work,' said the lawyer. 'It will require a great deal of drink, Pitman.'
'I took the liberty of--in short, of being prepared for you,' replied the artist, pointing to a kettle, a bottle of gin, a lemon, and glasses. Michael mixed himself a grog, and offered the artist a cigar.
'No, thank you,' said Pitman. 'I used occasionally to be rather partial to it, but the smell is so disagreeable about the clothes.'
'All right,' said the lawyer. 'I am comfortable now. Unfold your tale.'
At some length Pitman set forth his sorrows. He had gone today to Waterloo, expecting to receive the colossal Hercules, and he had received instead a barrel not big enough to hold Discobolus; yet the barrel was addressed in the hand (with which he was perfectly acquainted) of his Roman correspondent. What was stranger still, a case had arrived by the same train, large enough and heavy enough to contain the Hercules; and this case had been taken to an address now undiscoverable. 'The vanman (I regret to say it) had been drinking, and his language was such as I could never bring myself to repeat.
He was at once discharged by the superintendent of the line, who behaved most properly throughout, and is to make enquiries at Southampton. In the meanwhile, what was I to do? I left my address and brought the barrel home; but, remembering an old adage, I determined not to open it except in the presence of my lawyer.'
'Is that all?' asked Michael. 'I don't see any cause to worry.
The Hercules has stuck upon the road. It will drop in tomorrow or the day after; and as for the barrel, depend upon it, it's a testimonial from one of your young ladies, and probably contains oysters.'
'O, don't speak so loud!' cried the little artist. 'It would cost me my place if I were heard to speak lightly of the young ladies; and besides, why oysters from Italy? and why should they come to me addressed in Signor Ricardi's hand?'
'Well, let's have a look at it,' said Michael. 'Let's roll it forward to the light.'
The two men rolled the barrel from the corner, and stood it on end before the fire.
'It's heavy enough to be oysters,' remarked Michael judiciously.
'Shall we open it at once?' enquired the artist, who had grown decidedly cheerful under the combined effects of company and gin; and without waiting for a reply, he began to strip as if for a prize-fight, tossed his clerical collar in the wastepaper basket, hung his clerical coat upon a nail, and with a chisel in one hand and a hammer in the other, struck the first blow of the evening.
'That's the style, William Dent' cried Michael. 'There's fire for--your money! It may be a romantic visit from one of the young ladies--a sort of Cleopatra business. Have a care and don't stave in Cleopatra's head.'
