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Updated: June 23, 2025
I called on Sir Asher I had to go to the House of Commons to find him and his practical mind quickly suggested the best course in the circumstances. He appointed a date for all parties himself, myself, Conn, the two partners, and any witnesses they might care to bring to appear at his office. But, above all, Quarriar must bring the three children with him.
Such counter-plots, coils, treasons, and stratagems in so simple a matter! How Quarriar could even think them plausible I could not at first imagine; and with my anger was mingled a flush of resentment at his low estimate of my intellect. After-reflection instructed me that he wrote as a Russian to whom apparently nothing mediæval was strange.
On getting back to my studio, I found Quarriar waiting for me. He was come to pour out his heart to me, and to complain that all sorts of underhand inquiries were being directed against him, so that he scarcely dared to draw breath, so thick was the air with treachery. He was afraid that his very friends, who were anxious not to offend Conn and Sir Asher, might turn against him.
He said that Quarriar, challenged by Conn to produce these children, had refused to do so, or to answer any further questions. I found myself approving of his conduct. 'A man ought not to be insulted by such absurd charges, I said. Sir Asher merely smiled and took up his usual unshakable position behind his impregnable wall of official distrust and pessimism.
'But Quarriar has already found a partner. I explained the scheme. 'The partner will cheat him. Twenty pounds is ridiculous. Five pounds is quite enough. Take my advice, and let it all go through Conn. If I wanted my portrait painted, you wouldn't advise me to go to an amateur. By the way, here are the five pounds, but please don't tell Conn I gave them.
But being afraid of Conn, and not inclined to commit himself in writing, the landlord would give his version verbally. Against this statement my philanthropic friend had to set another as made by the partner. Moreover, he was willing to repeat in Quarriar's presence the lies the latter had tried to persuade him to tell. As to the children, he challenged Quarriar to produce them.
'That! His contempt penetrated even through the wires. 'Smashed up long ago. Just as I expected. And the sneer of the professional philanthropist vibrated triumphantly. I was much upset, but ere I could recover my composure Sir Asher was cut off. In the evening I received a note saying Quarriar was a rogue, who had to flee from Russia for illicit sale of spirits.
I would certainly call at the office and follow your advice. But my life is dearer. So you should not trouble to come. I fear already I gratify you for kind help till now, in the future you may do as you wish. This letter seemed decisive. I did not trouble Mr. Conn to English the Yiddish epistle. My imagination saw too clearly Quarriar himself dictating its luridly romantic phraseology.
My picture was not sent in to any Exhibition I could not let it go without seeing it again, without a last touch or two. When, some months later, I returned to town, my first thought inspired by the sight of my picture was how Quarriar was faring. I left the studio and telephoned to Sir Asher Aaronsberg at the London office of his great Middleton business.
There seemed, moreover, a note of suspicion of Quarriar sounding underneath, but I found comfort in the reflection that to Sir Asher my model was nothing more than the usual applicant for assistance, whereas to me who had lived for months in daily contact with him he was something infinitely more human.
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