and other autumn herbage stood about the room in vases, and the animal resumed its browsing operations; all the same, Eshley fancied that the beginnings of a hunted look had come into its eyes, a look that counselled respect. He discontinued his attempt to interfere with its choice of surroundings.
“Mr. Eshley,” said Adela in a shaking voice, “I asked you to drive that beast out of my garden, but I did not ask you to drive it into my house. If I must have it anywhere on the premises I prefer the garden to the morning-room.”
“Cattle drives are not in my line,” said Eshley; “if I remember I told you so at the outset.”
“I quite agree,” retorted the lady, “painting pretty pictures of pretty little cows is what you’re suited for. Perhaps you’d like to do a nice sketch of that ox making itself at home in my morning-room?”
This time it seemed as if the worm had turned; Eshley began striding away.
“Where are you going?” screamed Adela.
“To fetch implements,” was the answer.
“Implements? I won’t have you use a lasso. The room will be wrecked if there’s a struggle.”
But the artist marched out of the garden. In a couple of minutes he returned, laden with easel, sketching-stool, and painting materials.
“Do you mean to say that you’re going to sit quietly down and paint that brute while it’s destroying my morning-room?” gasped Adela.
“It was your suggestion,” said Eshley, setting his canvas in position.
“I forbid it; I absolutely forbid it!” stormed Adela.
“I don’t see what standing you have in the matter,” said the artist; “you can hardly pretend that it’s your ox, even by adoption.”
“You seem to forget that it’s in my morning-room, eating my flowers,” came the raging retort.
“You seem to forget that the cook has neuralgia,” said Eshley; “she may be just dozing off into a merciful sleep and your outcry will waken her. Consideration for others should be the guiding principle of people in our station of life.”
“The man is mad!” exclaimed Adela tragically. A moment later it was Adela herself who appeared to go mad. The ox had finished the vase-flowers and the cover of Israel Kalisch, and appeared to be thinking of leaving its rather restricted quarters. Eshley noticed its restlessness and promptly flung it some bunches of Virginia creeper leaves as an inducement to continue the sitting.
“I forget how the proverb runs,” he observed; “of something about ‘better a dinner of herbs than a stalled ox where hate is.’ We seem to have all the ingredients for the proverb ready to hand.”
“I shall go to the Public Library and get them to telephone for the police,” announced Adela, and, raging audibly, she departed.
Some minutes later the ox, awakening probably to the suspicion that oil cake and chopped mangold was waiting for it in some appointed byre, stepped with much precaution out of the morning-room, stared with grave inquiry at the no longer obtrusive and pea-stick-throwing human, and then lumbered heavily but swiftly out of the garden. Eshley packed up his tools and followed the animal’s example and Larkdene was left to neuralgia and the cook.
The episode was the turning-point in Eshley’s artistic career. His remarkable picture, Ox in a Morning-Room, Late Autumn, was one of the sensations and successes of the next Paris Salon, and when it was subsequently exhibited at Munich it was bought by the Bavarian Government, in the teeth of the spirited bidding of three meat-extract firms. From that moment his success was continuous and assured, and the Royal Academy was thankful, two years later, to give a conspicuous position on its walls to his large canvas Barbary Apes Wrecking a Boudoir.
Eshley presented Adela Pingsford with a new copy of Israel Kalisch, and a couple of finely flowering plants of “Madame Adnré Blusset,” but nothing in the nature of a real reconciliation has taken place between them.
Canossa
Demosthenes Platterbaff, the eminent Unrest Inducer, stood on his trial for a serious offence, and the eyes of the political world were focused on the jury. The offence, it should be stated, was serious for the government rather than for the prisoner. He had blown up the Albert Hall on the eve of the great Liberal Federation Tango Tea, the occasion on which the Chancellor of the Exchequer was expected to propound his new theory: “Do partridges spread infectious diseases?” Platterbaff had chosen his time well; the Tango Tea had been hurriedly postponed, but there were other political fixtures which could not be put off under any circumstances. The day after the trial there was to be a by-election at Nemesis-on-Hand, and it had been openly announced in the division that if Platterbaff were languishing in gaol on polling day the government candidate would be “outed” to a certainty. Unfortunately, there could be no doubt or misconception as to Platterbaff’s guilt. He had not only pleaded guilty, but had expressed his intention of repeating his escapade in other directions as soon as circumstances permitted; throughout the trial he was busy examining a small model of the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. The jury could not possibly find that the prisoner had not deliberately and intentionally blown up the Albert Hall; the question was: Could they find any extenuating circumstances which would permit of an acquittal? Of course any sentence which the law might feel compelled to inflict would be followed by an immediate pardon, but it was highly desirable, from the government’s point of view, that the necessity for such an exercise of clemency should not arise. A headlong pardon, on the eve of a bye-election, with threats of a heavy voting defection if it were withheld or even delayed, would not necessarily be a surrender, but it would look like one. Opponents would be only too ready to attribute ungenerous motives. Hence the anxiety in the crowded Court, and in the little groups gathered round the tape-machines in Whitehall and Downing Street and other affected centres.
The jury returned
