e
examination is close and constant, and the critic's trumpet-note
dispersed to the thinness of the fee for his blowing. As to foreign
pictures, classic pictures, Victor had known his purse to leap for a
Raphael with a history in stages of descent from the Master, and critics
to swarm: a Raphael of the dealers, exposed to be condemned by
the critics, universally derided. A real Raphael in your house is
aristocracy to the roof-tree. But the wealthy trader will reach to title
before he may hope to get the real Raphael or a Titian. Yet he is the
one who would, it may be, after enjoyment of his prize, bequeath it to
the nation--PRESENTED TO THE NATION BY VICTOR MONTGOMERY RADNOR. There
stood the letters in gilt; and he had a thrill of his generosity;
for few were the generous acts he could not perform; and if an object
haunted the deed, it came of his trader's habit of mind.

He revelled in benevolent projects of gifts to the nation, which
would coat a sensitive name. Say, an ornamental City Square, flowers,
fountains, afternoon bands of music--comfortable seats in it, and a
shelter, and a ready supply of good cheap coffee or tea. Tobacco? why
not rolls of honest tobacco! nothing so much soothes the labourer. A
volume of plans for the benefit of London smoked out of each ascending
pile in his brain. London is at night a moaning outcast round the
policeman's' legs. What of an all-night-long, cosy, brightly lighted,
odoriferous coffee-saloon for rich or poor, on the model of the
hospitable Paduan? Owner of a penny, no soul among us shall be rightly
an outcast....

Dreams of this kind are taken at times by wealthy people as a cordial
at the bar of benevolent intentions. But Victor was not the man to steal
his refreshments in that known style. He meant to make deeds of them, as
far as he could, considering their immense extension; and except for the
sensitive social name, he was of single-minded purpose.

Turning to the steps of a chemist's shop to get a prescription made up
for his Nataly's doctoring of her domestics, he was arrested by a rap
on his elbow; and no one was near; and there could not be a doubt of
the blow--a sharp hard stroke, sparing the funny-bone, but ringing. His
head, at the punctilio bump, throbbed responsively--owing to which
or indifference to the prescription, as of no instant requirement,
he pursued his course, resembling mentally the wanderer along a misty
beach, who hears cannon across the waters.