Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 1.djvu/73



"You knew I should advise it, or you would not have tortured your intellect by those researches into Bradshaw."

"Shrewdly said," answered Lionel, laughing; "but I wished for your sanction of my crude impressions."

"You never told me your cousin's name was Darrell: not that I should have been much wiser if you had; but, thunder and lightning, Lionel! do you know that your cousin Darrell is a famous man?"

LIONEL.—"Famous!--Nonsense. I suppose he was a good lawyer, for I have heard my mother say, with a sort of contempt, that he had made a great fortune at the bar."

VANCE.—"But he was in Parliament."

LIONEL.—"Was he? I did not know."

VANCE.—"And this is senatorial fame! You never heard your schoolfellows talk of Mr. Darrell?—they would not have known his name if you had boasted of it?"

LIONEL.—"Certainly not."

VANCE.—"Would your schoolfellows have known the names of Wilkie, of Landseer, of Turner, Maclise? I speak of painters."

LIONEL.—"I should think so, indeed."

VANCE (soliloquizing).—"And yet Her Serene Sublimity-ship, Lady Selina Vipont, says to me with divine compassion, 'Not in the way of your delightful art to know such men as Mr. Darrell!' Oh, as if I did not see through it, too, when she said, _a propos_ of my jean cap and velveteen jacket, 'What matters how you dress? Every one knows who you are!' Would she have said that to the earl of Dunder, or even to Sir Gregory Stollhead? No. I am the painter Frank Vance,—nothing more nor less; and if I stood on my head in a check shirt and a sky-coloured apron, Lady Selina Vipont would kindly murmur, 'Only Frank Vance the painter: what does it signify?' Aha!--and they think to put me to use, puppets and lay figures! it is I who put them to use! Hark ye, Lionel, you are nearer akin to these fine folks than I knew of. Promise me one thing: you may become of their set, by right of your famous Mr. Darrell; if ever you hear an artist, musician, scribbler, no matter what, ridiculed as a tuft-hunter,—seeking the great, and so forth,—before you join in the laugh, ask some great man's son, with a pedigree that dates from the Ark, 'Are you not a toad-eater too? Do you want political influence; do you stand contested elections; do you curry and fawn upon greasy Sam the butcher and grimy Tom the blacksmith for a vote? Why? useful to