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Many of my friends were gone; others were themselves in a precarious situation. Dijon, too, was on a lee-shore, designing clocks and gas-brackets for a dealer; and the most he could do was to offer me a corner of his studio where I might work. To continue to possess a full-sized statue, a man must have a studio, a gallery, or at least the freedom of a back-garden.
"Coppers will play these games," you sez. All right, then; but you let me finish. Third time there was a flaw in one of the gas-brackets in the spare room. I soddered it up and I come away. Soon arterwards, a day or two as it might be, Mrs. Rummles 'ad 'er mar a-stayin' with her, and the old lady slep in that very room, and was laid up weeks!
The window curtains and the wall-paper were fresh, and of a quiet blue; there was a large divan of the same colour; a light desk, prettily equipped, occupied a corner; and between two gilt gas-brackets, whose patent burners were shielded by fringed silk shades, stood a cheval-glass six feet high.
Clifford had his first kiss in the dim old parlour with the gas-brackets that evening; and after a few days he was as fervent a lover as any woman could ask, eager to rush through the necessary preparations for their marriage, and to let the world know of his happiness. He was more demonstrative than Martie had anticipated, or than she really cared to have him.
Of the steps of my misery, I cannot tell at length. But my misfortune befell me at an awkward juncture. Many of my friends were gone; others were themselves in a precarious situation. Dijon, too, was on a leeshore, designing clocks and gas-brackets for a dealer; and the most he could do was to offer me a corner of his studio where I might work.
Some sailors the other evening amused themselves by clambering down the top gallery to the pit, hanging on to the gas-brackets and the pillars; and one of them managed to reach the orchestra, jump from the drum on to the stage, and then offered me a glass of whiskey from a big black bottle he had in his hand.
A cream-colored wall had been thought the appropriate thing to go with black walnut furniture, but time and dust had made the combination dreary. There were no pictures or ornaments of any kind, save the stalky, over-elaborated gas-brackets which stood on his honor's desk, and the single swinging chandelier suspended from the center of the ceiling.
But Barstein drew back his own coat-tail from the attempted kiss. 'Where is the gas? he asked drily. 'Alas, the company removed the meter. 'But the gas-brackets? 'What else had we to eat? said Nehemiah simply. Barstein in sudden suspicion raised his eyes to the ceiling. But a fragment of gaspipe certainly came through it.
The ironwork of the gas-brackets was tightly swathed with red paper, and the bare jets fitted with paper shades to match.
He varnished the work of art with a genuine relish, and, the process being over, he and Paul returned to the office, where signs of life were beginning to show themselves. The flare of some thirty or forty lighted gas-brackets made an inroad on the fog, and knots of men were laughing and talking.
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