ady a morass of wharf drippings that reflected
pallidly the meagre gleams of the uplifted lamp. The magnificent anatomy
of a beautiful arm, a shapely bosom--bared, it seemed, in an effort to
reanimate--showed that this was no plebeian waif driven by stress of
poverty over the water's edge. On the elbow was grim evidence of Wray's
realistic mood--a bruise, wide and purple, and higher up, the dull
indenture of a water-rat's tooth.

"Well," said Spry, watching my mute amazement, "he has left no part of
his gruesome task undone; he has gloated in it--look!--even to the
snipping of the linen."

A definite jag on the front of the shift--the place which is usually
inscribed with the name of the owner--was carefully insisted on. It was
the highest light in the picture, and seemed to emphasise a piteous
degradation and still more piteous consciousness thereof.

"Wray turned moralist?" a bystander sneered.

"We may find sermons in stones, but we don't want 'em on canvas,"
bounced another, a "port-wine-flavoured" personage, who ogled for
applause with the confidence of the self-crowned wag.

I eyed him with swelling spleen, and shot a dart at Spry which was
intended to ricochet.

"Wasn't it Flaubert who said that, in the hands of an artist, a
disembowelled ox would make as fine a subject as any other?"

"I don't know," returned Spry, "but, anyway, about this work there are
ugly tales afloat. It is too true--unpleasantly, unnecessarily true."

It indeed appeared to be inhumanly horrible--a vulture swoop of the
brush--and, much as I appreciated Wray as a friend and worshipped him as
a disciple, I was forced to recognise a want of reserve, some lack of
sentiment in the handling--say, rather, over-handling--of so repellant a
subject. His aim seemed to lie in choking sentiment--suffocating it in
loathliness and disgust. There was a violence of passion that suggested
the manner of Prudhon--suggested it, but, giant-like, overshadowed it
with the brawny vigour of modern actuality.

I turned from the picture to the crowd, blinked dazedly to find myself
again facing daylight and colour, and stretched myself awake as far as
environing shoulders would allow. Looking away from this squalid scene,
I became suddenly aware of an unusual amount of paint and gilding on the
walls--an art tawdriness that had not before obtruded itself. My taste
for the reproduction of veined marble and glossy parquet, for pretty
pussies and portraits of gen