Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/552

 The drawing-room is a delightful apartment, and opens out into a conservatory, where is a wealth of fuchsias, lilies, azaleas, palms, and ferns. The walls are of cream delicately picked out in gold. Dresden china crowds the marble mantelboard and every nook, save for an occasional rarity in Japanese ware. Many portraits are here, and the little daughter is to be seen in no end of positions as chronicled by the camera—here with one of her pets, and in another in the costume of the Queen of Hearts," as she appeared at a recent Mansion House ball. Just then she bounds into the room and plays a small operatic air for our enjoyment. She is caught up by her father.

"This child has so many pets," he says, "that I am thinking of charging 6d. to anybody who wants to come and see them. Do you know, this place is often taken for the Zoo by strangers on their way to that popular resort? Only the other day a couple of boys walked up the path. 'We've got 'em, sir,' one said. 'What?' I asked. 'The tickets to admit us.' 'Where to—"The Elms? 'No, sir; the Zoo!' 'Bottom of the road and the first gate you come to!' I directed them."

Lady Harris—a most charming woman—joins us, and we enter the dining-room, with its fine bronzes, and sideboard overweighted with silver flagons and tankards, salvers, and other choice examples of the silversmith's art presented to Sir Augustus by the members of his various companies. Many interesting oil paintings adorn the walls, including one, by Cecil M. Round, of Lady Harris, with her little girl in a blue frock and white hood rushing to her side. Another is an exceptionally clever work by W. L. Wyllie, painted in 1882. Two fine busts of Aunt Chloe and Uncle Tom occupy a position near the window, and everybody wants to know why Lady Harris puts an old straw hat on Uncle Tom. It is part of the modelling, but is so realistic as to cheat the eye. Then, all in a happy mood, we breakfast together, and a few minutes later I am seated by Sir Augustus Harris's side driving down to the theatre.

That drive—round Regent's Park, down Portland-place, and through the busy traffic of Regent-street—resulted in the story of many interesting incidents in his remarkable career. No man has worked harder than he, and he frankly admits that he has made his greatest successes out of the