Mortal Coils

telegram. The message was a short one. "Found.-SPODE." A look of pleasure and intelligence made human

the ceiling.... And a small, shrivelled old man clambering about the scaffolding, agile and quick like one of those whiskered little monkeys at the Zoo, painting away, painting

k. His lordship was in the nineteenth-century chamber, engaged in clearing away w

see me already preparing for the great man's

s ninety-seven this year. Born in 1816. Incredible

u like," said B

run him to earth. It was like a Sherlock Holmes story, immensely elaborate, too el

he

p out of life in the way he did. He took it into his head, somewhere about the 'sixties, to go to Palestine to get local colour for his religious pictures-scapegoats and things, y

id he do al

his way back to England, only to find that everyone he had known was dead, that the dealers had never heard of him and wouldn't buy his pictures, that he was simply a ridiculous old figure of fun. So he got a job as a drawing-master in a girl's school in Holloway, and there he's been ever since, growing older and o

re quite depressing enough. I insist that life at least shall be

int. He's too bl

med in horror. "Then what's t

t it like that..

my frescoes. Ring

de

int?" went on Lord Badgery petulantly. "After all, that wa

ve much sun in

appeared a

h a wave of the hand the ravaged cases, the confusion of glass and china with which he had littere

gh the long gallery

been such a disappointment,

omething else; he ce

? He's only got ten pounds between him and the workhous

ll do everything y

up a subscription amon

't any," sa

y of people who will sub

ive them somethin

is honour. The Great Tillotson Banquet. Doyen of the British Art. A Link with the Past. Can't you se

ll be fun to see them squabbling." Badgery laughed. Then his face darkened once again. "Still,

u suggest it. T