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Updated: May 1, 2025
"Now, sonny," he said, with gentle grimness, "you and me will have an Art to Art talk. You've got your art and I've got mine. Yours is the real Pierian stuff that turns up its nose at bock-beer signs and oleographs of the Old Mill. Mine's the art of Business. This was my scheme, and it worked out like two-and-two.
He heard of my desire to settle in his country with surprise and seeming pleasure, and made me sit beside him on a sofa in an upper chamber of magnificent proportions spoilt, to my taste, by gaudy Frankish furniture and certain oleographs of the crowned heads of Europe which adorned its walls. He thought, as is the way of Orientals, visibly, with finger pressed to brow.
For a moment she regarded him with a white face, then her eyes went about the quaint, old-fashioned room, with its middle Victorian furniture and genuine oleographs, and rested at last on the little lump of humanity within her arms. Denton glanced at her and stood downcast. Then he swung round on his heel and walked up and down very rapidly. "I must get something to do," he broke out presently.
It was Annie's hour for resuming work, and it was well for her, though she went but languidly into the spotlessly white and clean ward, among its rows of beds with the flower-stand, illuminated texts and oleographs, which generous supporters of the hospital sent to brighten its cold bareness and soften and cheer what was harsh and subdued in its atmosphere.
Within, everything was ready for the banquet. In the big dining-room adorned with German oleographs and smelling of geraniums and varnish there were two tables, a larger one for the dinner and a smaller one for the hors-d'oeuvres.
In those evenings the scene had grown familiar to her; the long room with the three tall windows looking on the street; the Nottingham lace curtains tied with yellow sashes in the middle; the vivid blue-green painting of the wood-work, a bad match for the wall paper; the oleographs and pier-glasses in their gilded frames; the carpet, with its monstrous meaningless design in brown and amber; the table, secretary, and cabinet of walnut wood whose markings simulated some horrible discoloration of decay; the base company of chairs, and the villainous little maroon velvet ottoman, worn by the backs of many boarders; and beyond the blue-green folding doors the dim little chamber looking on a mews.
The ceiling was black from the smoke of hanging lamps; little square tables were dotted about the floor; their covers were coarse and not above reproach on the score of cleanliness. The air was pungent with the odor of cheap tobacco and cheaper cigars. On the walls were faded oleographs of generals and archbishops, flyblown and stained.
Sproatly was an Englishman of good education, though his appearance seldom suggested it, who drove about the prairie in a waggon vending cheap oleographs and patent medicines most of the summer, and contrived to obtain free quarters from his bachelor acquaintances during the winter.
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