Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/55

Rh himself to me and agreeing also to wear sock-suspenders from that day forth. I saw, indeed, that diplomacy might work wonders with him.

At breakfast in the drawing-room, during which Cousin Egbert earned warm praise from Mrs. Effie for his lack of appetite (he winking violently at me during this), I learned that I should be expected to accompany him to a certain art gallery which corresponds to our British Museum. I was a bit surprised, indeed, to learn that he largely spent his days there, and was accustomed to make notes of the various objects of interest.

"I insisted," explained Mrs. Effie, "that he should absorb all the culture he could on his trip abroad, so I got him a notebook in which he puts down his impressions, and I must say he's done fine. Some of his remarks are so good that when he gets home I may have him read a paper before our Onwards and Upwards Club."

Cousin Egbert wriggled modestly at this and said: "Shucks!" which I took to be a term of deprecation.

"You needn't pretend," said Mrs. Effie. "Just let Ruggles here look over some of the notes you have made," and she handed me a notebook of ruled paper in which there was a deal of writing. I glanced, as bidden, at one or two of the paragraphs, and confess that I, too, was amazed at the fluency and insight displayed along lines in which I should have thought the man entirely uninformed. "This choice work represents the first or formative period of the Master," began one note, "but distinctly foreshadows that later method which made him at once the hope and despair of his contemporaries. In the 'Portrait of the Artist by Himself' we have a canvas that