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artist to himself. All through his tea and afterward, as he was giving
his eldest boy a lesson on the fiddle, his mind dwelt no longer on his
troubles, but he was rapt into the better land; and no sooner was he at
liberty than he hastened with positive exhilaration to his studio.
Not even the sight of the barrel could entirely cast him down. He flung
himself with rising zest into his work--a bust of Mr Gladstone from a
photograph; turned (with extraordinary success) the difficulty of
the back of the head, for which he had no documents beyond a hazy
recollection of a public meeting; delighted himself by his treatment
of the collar; and was only recalled to the cares of life by Michael
Finsbury's rattle at the door.
'Well, what's wrong?' said Michael, advancing to the grate, where,
knowing his friend's delight in a bright fire, Mr Pitman had not spared
the fuel. 'I suppose you have come to grief somehow.'
'There is no expression strong enough,' said the artist. 'Mr
Semitopolis's statue has not turned up, and I am afraid I shall be
answerable for the money; but I think nothing of that--what I fear, my
dear Mr Finsbury, what I fear--alas that I should have to say it!
is exposure. The Hercules was to be smuggled out of Italy; a thing
positively wrong, a thing of which a man of my principles and in my
responsible position should have taken (as I now see too late) no part
whatever.'
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