Page:Hopkinson Smith--armchair at the inn.djvu/329

 still, as if he had not heard me or was out. When I pushed the door open he turned, looked at me for an instant, and resumed his work. Again my eyes took him in—thinner, dryer, less nourished. He was casting the little images you buy from a board carried on a vendor’s back.

“Without heeding his silence I at once stated my errand. He should make a statue for my garden; furthermore, his name and address should be plainly cut in the pedestal.

“He thanked me for my order, but he made no more statues, he said. He was now engaged in commercial work. Art was dead. Nobody cared. Did I remember his great statue—the one in the garden?—his Apollo?—the Greek of modern times? Well, the place had changed hands, and the new owner had carted it away with the cast-iron dogs and the dolphins and ploughed up the lawn to make an artichoke-bed. The masterpiece was no more. ‘I found all that was left of my work,’ he added, ‘on a dirt heap in the rear of his out-house, the head gone and both arms broken short off.’

“His voice wavered and ceased, and it was with some difficulty that he straightened his back, moved his drying plaster casts one side,