Page:Ruddigore.djvu/75




 * Ha! ha!

The dead of the night's high-noon!

I recognize you now—you are the picture that hangs at the end of the gallery.

In a bad light. I am.

Are you considered a good likeness?

Pretty well. Flattering.

Because as a work of art you are poor.

I am crude in colour, but I have only been painted ten years. In a couple of centuries I shall be an Old Master, and then you will be sorry you spoke lightly of me.

And may I ask why you have left your frames?

It is our duty to see that our successors commit their daily crimes in a conscientious and workmanlike fashion. It is our duty to remind you that you are evading the conditions under which you are permitted to exist.

Really, I don't know what you'd have. I've only been a bad baronet a week, and I've committed a crime punctually every day.

Let us inquire into this. Monday?

Monday was a Bank Holiday.

True. Tuesday?

On Tuesday I made a false income tax return.

Ha! ha!

That's nothing.

Nothing at all.

Everybody does that.

It's expected of you.

Wednesday?

[Melodramatically.] On Wednesday I forged a will.

Whose will?

My own.

My good sir, you can't forge your own will!

Can't I though! I like that! I did! Besides, if a man can't forge his own will, whose will can he forge?

There's something in that.

Yes, it seems reasonable.