"
Will had much ado not to laugh. On his return from a holiday, Mrs.
Hopper always presumed him to be despondent in view of the
resumption of daily work. He was beginning to talk of Mrs. Allchin's
troubles, when at the outer door sounded a long nervous knock.
"Ha! That's Mr. Franks."
Mrs. Hopper ran to admit the visitor.
CHAPTER 2
"Warburton!" cried a high-pitched voice from the passage. "Have you
seen _The Art World_?"
And there rushed into the room a tall, auburn-headed young man of
five-and-twenty, his comely face glowing in excitement. With one
hand he grasped his friend's, in the other he held out a magazine.
"You haven't seen it! Look here! What d'you think of that, confound
you!"
He had opened the magazine so as to display an illustration,
entitled "Sanctuary," and stated to be after a painting by Norbert
Franks.
"Isn't it good? Doesn't it come out well?--deuce take you, why
don't you speak?"
"Not bad--for a photogravure," said Warburton, who had the air of
a grave elder in the presence of this ebullient youth.
"Be hanged! We know all about that. The thing is that it's _there_.
Don't you feel any surprise? Haven't you got anything to say? Don't
you see what this means, you old ragamuffin?"
"Shouldn't wonder if it meant coin of the realm--for your shrewd
dealer."
"For me too, my boy, for me too! Not out of this thing, of course.
But I've arrived, I'm _lance_, the way is clear! Why, you don't seem
to know what it means getting into _The Art World_.
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